Descent into the Darkness: The Fall of the Sniper
by Mikageshi
Summary: The story of the childhood, first love, and eventual recruitment of a telekinetic boy named Hagiri Kaname as the first human psychic scouted into the Sensui Seven—the Sniper. WINNER OF THE YYH FANFICTION CONTEST at the /r/YuYuHakusho Subreddit of Reddit dot Com!
1. Falling in Love

**Disclaimer  
** The fictional characters, settings, events, and other such elements portrayed herein are based upon the anime _Yu Yu Hakusho_ , originally a _manga_ series created by Togashi Yoshihiro- _sama_ and adapted to the small screen by Fuji TV in Japan and FUNimation Entertainment in the U.S. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

 **Summary  
** How the Sniper fell—in love, and into Sensui's manipulative trap.

This is the story of the childhood, first love, and eventual recruitment of a telekinetic boy named Hagiri Kaname as the first human psychic scouted into the Sensui Seven—told in three chapters.

* * *

 **A/N  
** Hello, one and all! Mikageshi here! ^-^

I posted this fanfic as my entry to the _**Yu Yu Hakusho**_ **Fanfiction Contest** organized by the moderators of the **/r/YuYuHakusho subreddit** at **Reddit dot Com** for the month of August 2015—based on the prompt:

"Write a prequel to _Yu Yu Hakusho_ that details the untold history of one or more of the characters."

The following three chapters, then, detail my take on just how the canon YYH character named Hagiri Kaname (alias Sniper) fell—in love, as well as into Sensui Shinobu's manipulative machinations.

To the mods at **/r/YuYuHakusho** :  
Thank you very much for this exciting opportunity to share our YYH fanfiction with the fandom, and for keeping the YYH flame alive!

And without further ado…  
 **Happy reading~! \\(^o^)/**

* * *

 **DESCENT INTO THE DARKNESS:  
** **The Fall of Hagiri Kaname**

"JERK!"

Slanted lavender eyes darted from a blank sheet of paper to a girl in a sky blue apron.

One of Hagiri Kaname's many—too many—female classmates sniffled, huge hazel eyes welling up. "Why does that jerk Rei always pick on me?"

Hot tears blurring her sight, Akasaki Minaku eyed the golden splash on her apron. The class bully of Grade Three, Section Lotus of Mushiyori Elementary had just sloshed paint on her. Again. "What did _I_ ever do to _him_?"

Nami covered her eyes with her hands and wept into them, sniffing in between sobs.

"Hey." A high-pitched yet male voice sighed into Kaname's ear. "What happened to Akasaki?"

His face as blank as his eyes, Kaname looked away. "The usual."

He dipped a small, thin paintbrush into the cup of murky water between him and his seatmate. The indifferent, uninterested Kaname was already aiming his brush towards his watercolor palette when a low yet female voice caught his attention.

"If you want to cry it out, Nami- _chan_ , then I won't stop you. But it's really no big deal."

That was new to him.

To the nine-year-old boy, the most—no, the _only_ —natural response to someone shedding tears was to stop him or her. "Don't cry." It was as simple as that.

Apparently, not for that classmate of his.

From his desk at the far back of the room, Kaname glared at a wave of sandy brown hair rippling all the way down the girl's back, past her waist, and slowly swaying from side to side as she stooped and studied Nami's apron.

As she wiped her teary eyes with her wrists, Nami suddenly felt a finger running along her torso. " _Eeh_?" She looked down and found her brunette seatmate spreading out the paint stain on her apron. "Why are you doing that, Setsu- _chan_? Mama's going to get really mad at me if you dirty my apron even more!"

But the girl with the boyish name continued finger-painting on Nami's apron as if she had heard nothing at all. "It's not as bad as you think." Ice blue eyes met nut brown. "Look."

A tearful, fearful Minaku from up close—and a curious Kaname in denial from afar—blinked at the sky blue apron. A radiant golden sun now shone where the splotch of yellow paint used to lie.

"What did you just do, Setsu- _chan_? Did you just turn that nasty stain into a sun?" Nami voiced out Kaname's sentiments exactly.

He hated her name. But she herself didn't seem so bad.

"You saw a problem. But I saw art. Now you see it too, _ne_?"

Kaname harrumphed to himself.

"Stupid. Got paint on her hand."

The ill-tempered third grader had to attend to his watercolor drawing for art class soon.

But he could not look away.

 **Chapter One  
** _ **Falling in Love**_

A green marble whacked into a violet one.

"Ha!" cried a freckled boy on his knees, proudly pointing to the new (dis)arrangement of toy marbles dotting the ground. "Take _that_ , Hagiri!"

"Was that supposed to impress me?"

A confident smirk crossing his face, the now eleven-year-old Hagiri Kaname crouched further down, his chin nearly grazing the playground asphalt. He pressed his right thumb against his curled right pointer finger and expertly flicked another violet marble away. The small glistening ball knocked a blue one right off the boys' chalk circle on the floor.

"Aw, man!" Kaname's freckled playmate slapped a hand on his own forehead. "Y' did it again!"

The fifth grade class representative nudged his glasses back up his nose. "Wow Kaname- _kun_ , you're incredible at this game!" The amazed student officer whirled around. "That marble went so far, I didn't even see where it flew off to!"

"Yeah, where did it go?" The boy with freckles shielded his eyes from the blinding noonday sun high overhead. "Y' better go get it!"

" _Aa_." Kaname rose to his feet, dusted off the cakes of mud crusting his knees, and eyed his friends suspiciously. "Be right back. Don't touch those marbles."

He had not even taken one step away from them when the kid with freckles accidentally dropped a brown marble he had secretly hidden behind his back. "W-W-What are ya talkin' about? We would never do that!"

Their class representative sweat-dropped.

A distrustful, knowing eyebrow shot up. "Hmph. You better not." Throwing a heated glare at his mischievous playmate, Kaname strode downhill—towards the oldest apple tree in the Mushiyori Elementary schoolyard. "Should be here somewhere…"

He found it. His purple marble had rolled all the way to someone's foot.

"Who's there?" snapped the boy.

He eyed the filthy sneaker right beside his marble, its sole even muddier than his bare knees. Curious yet cautious lavender eyes wandered from the stranger's feet to legs clothed in wrinkled knee-length white socks.

Then a skirt.

It was a girl. Not just any girl. The one with the awfully ugly name.

She was alone again. With her slouched back propped against the trunk of a most miserable-looking apple tree, Kaname's even more miserable-looking classmate was busily penciling on the drawing book on her lap. She did it every day—doodling away in that trusty sketchpad of hers with neither a care in the world nor for it.

Kaname treaded closer to his preoccupied classmate of five years now, unaware that he was quieting his steps. She did not look up at him. Even when he stood right before her… towered over her… and glared upon her face.

And even when he hunched down and picked up his strayed marble, she remained entirely absorbed in her own world.

Wasn't she lonely like that? Didn't she ever want to just put the pencil down and play some fun game?

Kaname cleared his throat, his pride forbidding him from direct eye contact with her. "Wanna play?"

Was this girl deaf or dumb or something?

She still did not look up. So much for trying to be polite! That proved to be a waste of time and saliva.

"Hmph." Dissatisfaction crumpling his face, an offended Kaname turned his back on her and returned to his friends. Neither of them knelt on the asphalt anymore.

"Hey, what took you so long, Kaname- _kun_?" asked their class rep, adjusting his spectacles again.

"Yeah! My knees hurt real bad already!" The freckled boy picked off the tiny pebbles that had dug into the skin of his bare, grubby knees. "Was another chick hittin' on ya again?"

"Huh?" A suddenly uncomfortable Kaname blinked. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"We saw the skirt behind you, Hagiri!" The freckled boy grinned impishly, clacking his tongue twice and winking at his heartthrob friend. "What did she say?"

A long pause.

"Nothing."

"Aw, come _on_! Y' _really_ expect me to believe—"

With one hand on his eyeglasses, the class rep took another glance towards the apple tree. "Ah, but it was her."

Smoldering lavender eyes narrowed.

"I can believe she didn't say anything to you," nodded the bespectacled boy. "I don't think she talks to anyone else in our class aside from Akasaki- _chan_."

"Some people like having just one friend instead of a lot," shrugged Kaname. "Mayonaka could be one of those people."

"'Mayonaka'?" exclaimed the boy with freckles, disapproval scribbled all over his face. "If y' know what's _good_ for ya, Hagiri, you'd stay far, far away from tha' weirdo!"

"'Weirdo'?" repeated Kaname. She was more of a snob, and could be artistic, but a weirdo?

"You heard me! She's _weird_!" Kaname's now-excited freckled friend gripped both his shoulders. It didn't hurt, but just what was the big deal about that girl with the boy name? "I saw 'er talking to a flower once! A _flower_ , Hagiri!"

The student officer's glasses hid his eyes from view. "Actually, I, too, have seen her talking to a tree." He cleared his throat nervously, all too aware of—and, to some extent, shameful for—backstabbing their notoriously unusual classmate. "She's forgetful with shoes, too. After Physical Ed class, when we change from our rubber shoes back to school shoes, she always forgets one shoe." He sweat-dropped. "As class rep, I have to keep reminding her of it."

"An' one time, in art class, she used fruits and vegetables as her paintbrushes!" gasped the freckled boy. "She dipped a banana, an okra stalk, a tomato slice, and some other stuff into paint an' made 'er project out of 'em!"

Kaname collected the marbles scattered around them. "What's wrong with that?" He stuffed the glassy balls into his pants pockets. "That was kinda creative."

"Y' can say that _now_ , but jus' wait 'til you hear what happened _after_ art class!" The boy with freckles pointed out. "She _ate_ 'em for lunch!"

"So?"

"If y' haven't gotten the memo yet, Hagiri, that's really, really _weird_!"

"Nothing wrong with it." The unfazed boy shrugged it off. "As long as she didn't eat the parts with paint."

In complete surrender, the freckled boy threw his hands up in the air and groaned. "Dude, what's wrong wit' you?"

* * *

" _A-A-Anou_ …"

His elbow on his desk and his palm cradling his chin, a visibly bored Kaname cracked a drowsy, misty eye open. Yet another petite hand shyly slipped a frilly pink envelope onto his table.

"F-f-for you, Hagiri- _sama_!" A silky black scalp fearfully bobbed up and down before him. Another girl from his class was wasting his time. She was the third one today. "P-P-Please read it!"

He had not even opened his other eye when the furiously blushing girl bowed again and broke into a mad dash away from him.

Not again. A sigh escaped his lips just as the school bell rang.

"Oh, no…" moaned a familiar melodious voice. Kaname's eyes darted from the love letter on his tabletop to a most distressed Nami. "Lunch period is over, but Setsu- _chan_ isn't back yet. Where could she be?"

Suddenly, a bolt of thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Within seconds, heavy nimbus clouds shadowed over the City of Mushiyori and spilled brimming bucketfuls of rain.

Still leaning on his classroom desk with his elbow, Kaname buried his cheek even deeper into his palm. "If she's still out there…"

She wasn't.

"SETSU- _CHAN_!"

Fifth-grade heads whirled to find a soaking wet figure by their doorway.

A now comforted yet still concerned Nami rushed to her rain-drenched best friend. "You're _late_! Good thing _Sensei_ isn't here yet! Where have you _been_?"

"People-watching." The girl behind dripping brown bangs mumbled nonchalantly, as if nothing was amiss. A wet mop of long hair clinging onto her back, Setsu raised her now-soggy sketchpad for Nami to see. "Then people-drawing."

"That's _it_?" Shaking her head in stubborn disapproval, Nami ushered Setsu back to their adjacent seats, ignoring the watery trail and muddy shoeprints that her best friend was leaving on their recently waxed classroom floor. "Why'd you take so long?"

"Well, I was drawing three people at first," Setsu eyed her drawing book, its pages now damp to the touch. Her light pencil drafts—they were ruined! An unspoken yet nonetheless pained loneliness crossed her face. "But I changed my mind at the last minute."

Nami reached down Setsu's back and wrung sandy brown hair dry. "Why?"

"One of them suddenly stood out."

Suddenly, Kaname found himself biting back a gasp. The girl with the boyish name… She was headed straight for him.

" _Mengo_."

He blinked in confounded confusion. " _Men… go…_?"

She tore a moist page out of her pad. " _Aa_. I noticed your marble earlier. I heard your question, too. But I was too caught up in the moment to stop drawing. So," she handed the now blurry pencil painting to him. "Here you go. I hope you don't mind it wet."

Lavender eyes narrowed at the paper. "What's this?"

"Not one of those letters you're used to getting," chuckled Setsu to herself as she weaved past classroom chairs while returning to her own. She shot him a sidelong glance over her shoulder. "I don't know how to write one of _those_. And I don't believe that I want to know, either."

Kaname found himself face-to-face with a rough yet remarkably realistic portrait of himself. So _that_ was how he looked playing marbles! Her portrayal of his eyes was noticeably larger than how they appeared in a mirror—all his limbs were ridiculously out of proportion as well—but hey, the artist _was_ but eleven years of age, after all.

Finally. He had finally beheld one of the pages of that secret sketchbook of hers with his own eyes. Now he understood why she always kept it by her side. Her devotion to drawing was paying off.

And below the bottommost toy marble in the illustration were the words:

" _Thank you. You aren't so weird to me yourself."_

"Mayonaka…"

Lost lavender eyes strayed from the artwork to its artist.

"… You heard us."

* * *

"Akasaki!"

" _Haaai_!" A dainty, hyperactive hand shot up. Nami scurried to the front and playfully pounced onto the platform beneath the blackboard. " _Sensei_ , _minna_ , this is my drawing of my family!" She pointed to the part of the page wherein she had penciled two stick figures with oversized heads and triangles for skirts. "This is me and my mama!" Then she motioned towards a short stick figure with another triangle-skirt and a longer one without. "And this is Papa and Mifuyu-' _nee-chan_! Me and Mama live here in Japan, but Papa and ' _Nee-chan_ moved away!"

"Where did they go?" An interested girl from the front row piped up.

"Very far away." The naïve Nami even nodded for emphasis. "So far away, Mama said we'll never see them again!"

Sorrowful blue eyes hid beneath brown hair. _Her parents must have had a divorce_ , Setsu thought, biting her lip. _And she doesn't even know it._

"Sometimes I miss my ' _Nee-chan_ …" murmured a wistful, dreamy Nami, more to herself than to her audience. "She sings very well! She's joined many singing contests and won! Someday, I want to be just like her!"

"Thank you, Akasaki- _chan_!" The fifth-grade art teacher of Mushiyori Elementary applauded, encouraging her students to follow her lead. "Just keep practicing, and you could have a singing career in the future! Next—Mayonaka!"

Mayonaka Setsuki rose from her seat and sighed to herself, her calm silence hushing her classmates as well. Never had she been fond of public speaking—especially before attentive yet sinfully judgmental eyes. _Oh, well._

 _Here goes nothing._

Setsu stood before them and held her family portrait up. The class held their breaths, oohed, and ahhed at the lifelike masterpiece right before their eyes. No one—arguably, not even her best friend Akasaki Minaku—fully, truly understood the class weirdo, but everyone was well aware of her flair for fine art.

"My father's name is Tsuzuku. My mother, Kiseki. We are only three, but that does not make us any less happy a family."

Their _Sensei_ nodded in agreement. "That's right, Mayonaka- _chan_! But there _is_ one thing I want to ask…"

 _So she noticed._ An eleven-year-old hand, calloused from years of everyday household chores as well as tireless practice sketches, threatened to ball into a fist. _Darn it._

"In your drawing, why is your mother farther from you than your father is?"

A blue gaze fell. "That is because she is in real life." _I don't really think I did anything wrong by including her here. She may be gone, but she will always be a member of our family…_

A hand from the back of the room flailed for her attention. "Did she go far, far away like Minaku- _chan_ 's daddy and sister?"

"You could say that." _But even farther._ "But I still believe that we'll see each other again someday." _Which I know is less likely than Nami_ -chan _seeing her father and sister again, but I'm not deluding myself, anyway…_

"I'm sure you will, Mayonaka- _chan_. Thank you for sharing with us." Their schoolteacher nodded as she clapped. "Next—Hagiri!"

" _Aa_." Hagiri Kaname could not care any less for his turn in the limelight. As he and Setsu passed each other, violet flames met eye to eye with blue ice.

 _What?_ Blue eyes narrowed menacingly. _Are you on to me?_

Lavender eyes returned the defiant glare as quickly as they then looked away. "A family of three isn't small. Mine is." He pinched the top middle of his sheet of bond paper, revealing a blank page for all to see. "It's not worth it—drawing my family. Dad's been dead for years. It's just Mom and me at home."

The members of the Hagiri Kaname Fan Club gasped and gushed all over in perfect unison.

"Awww! Hagiri- _sama_ doesn't have a daddy anymore!"

"Oh, that's so sad!"

"My poor baby!"

Seated at the far corner of the room with her arms folded across her chest, Setsu rolled her eyes and grunted to herself. _So he lacks one parent as well. Big deal._

"Don't you and your mother ever miss your father, Hagiri- _kun_?" asked their art _sensei_ , more upset with the sudden news of death in the young Kaname's family than his blatant disregard for her homework assignments.

Kaname shrugged, casually jamming one hand into his pants pocket. "Mom's been seeing this Kitajima guy. He has a son and a daughter. If they hit it off, I could have a new dad and siblings."

" _KYAAA_!" squealed the Hagiri Kaname Fan Club with one voice. "We might still have a father-in-law!"

 _He couldn't possibly marry_ all of you _!_ An exasperated Setsu massaged her temples. _Ohhh, r_ _abid fangirls. So reliably annoying._

* * *

Stronger, broader fingers gripped one diamond-shaped crisscross of metal wires.

Kaname inched closer to the wired railing bordering the rooftop of the Mushiyori Junior High School building. Every wall of the roof deck had been fenced with crisscrossed wires for the safety of students.

In his opinion, they didn't need the fences. At their age, junior high students should already know way better than to jump off the top floor of any four-storey building. Then again, the school _did_ accommodate some pretty suicidal psychopaths like several of his classmates were…

One of his hands still clenching the wires of the barrier before him, he stuffed his other hand into his pants pocket and stared at the students slowly, casually entering and exiting the building four floors beneath him. From where he stood, Kaname had a bird's-eye view of them all—small, insect-like figures leisurely crawling into their haven and hive.

He closed his eyes. "This isn't so bad." A secret smile curled his lips. "People-watching."

At that moment, Kaname retrieved two small spherical objects from inside his pocket. For a while, he eyed the blue and violet marbles in his palm, reminiscing of those good old grade school days when he could just kneel anywhere he wanted, scatter his pebble-sized toys before him, and flick his troubles away.

He tossed the two marbles up into the air—and had already caught them both with one sweeping grab when suddenly—

"Hey _pretty boy_!"

Kaname whirled to the fire exit door. One by one, three rugged, ragged boys from his class stepped into the view deck, the tallest, stoutest one in the lead.

"I see ya haven't lost yer marbles yet!" gibed the leader of the freshman class bullies, even elbowing his accomplices to sensationalize his timely taunt. The two smaller boys flanking him sniggered shamelessly.

" _GYAHAHAHA_! Good one, Rei!"

Hagiri Kaname held little to no respect for suck-ups. They disgusted him. Since they were never the masterminds themselves, they could eventually feign innocence and claim no willful involvement in any incident that backfires on them. To him, they deserved to be condemned even more than their leaders—for at least the brains of the outfit actually had "brains" to speak of, while they merely played the role of puppets, mindlessly fulfilling their bosses' every whimper and whim.

But in the case of _this_ messed-up bunch… Even their leader was no cunning intelligence scheming in the shadows. All three of them were equally disgraceful.

"Aren'tcha a li'l too old t' be playin' wit' 'em marbles, pretty boy?"

"What do _you_ care?" spat Kaname, lavender eyes narrowing, burning. "What do you want?"

"Hmph!" The burly Rei spat on the ground and heavily trudged towards him, his cohorts following right by his side. "As if _you_ got anythin' _I_ want—"

"But Rei, aren'tcha pissed at 'im 'cause that hot babe y' like likes 'im—"

"SHUT YER TRAP, WILL YA?!" Rei instantly jabbed his idiot subordinate square in the jaw and turned back to Kaname. "Where were we? Oh, yeah! Y' don't got anythin' on ya, pal! You make me _sick_!"

The bully imposed himself before his smaller, lankier classmate. Rei had grown three inches taller over the vacation. And worse, he knew it. The massive thug seized Kaname by the polo shirt collar, stocky hands all too ready to wring some scrawny neck.

Kaname harrumphed to the brute's face. "If this is about some girl, leave me out of it." He squeezed his fist around two marbles digging into his palm. "Just ask her out—if you dare."

"YOU CALLIN' ME A COWARD?!"

Just then, Rei hoisted the shorter, slender boy clean off his feet.

Kaname glanced downward and winced to himself. This bastard was now stronger than ever before. He himself had never been lifted so high off the ground in his life.

"If she turns you down, that's not _my_ problem."

" _KUSO_! Yer gonna pay for that wit' yer pretty li'l face!"

The frequent bully victim ducked in time to dodge an incoming fist. Rei soon found his tightly balled punching fist stuck in between a diamond of wires in the fence. "WHAT THE—?!" Eyes nearly popping out of their sockets, he summoned his sidekicks to his side. "YOU IDIOTS! HELP ME GET OFF THIS!"

Kaname gritted his teeth. "This is pointless. Just leave me alone!"

"Y' kiddin' me?" Rei and his cohorts heaved all together and wrenched his fist off the diamond-shaped gap in the metal wiring. "I'm jus' gettin' started, pretty boy wit' the pretty face an' the pretty name!"

At that, a frown crossed Kaname's face. "'Name'?"

"Don't tell me it never hit'cha!" scoffed Rei, the words rolling off his lips with contempt. "'Kaname'! What a girly name! Fits a bitch like _you_!"

Of course he had realized it a long, long time ago—much earlier in life than this pathetic bully ever had. 'Kaname' was indeed a unisex name. He had never been too fond of it. In fact, he had spent his entire childhood trying to come up with some other cooler, more masculine name for himself—even just an alias that oozed mystery… machismo.

"Hmph." The slighted Kaname seared the bully alive with nothing more than smoldering eyes, secretly agreeing with the derogatory remark yet openly resenting it all at once.

"How many lives must you make miserable in one day?"

Startled gasps escaping their lips, four boys whirled towards the direction of that low, mellow voice.

Much as he hated to—and would never!—admit it, the voice never failed to soak and soothe Kaname's senses. It wasn't tiny and shrill, like those of other girls his age. A mysterious maturity calmed it more and more with each passing school year.

And this year, she didn't sound thirteen at all.

"Had I been born male, the name 'Kaname' would be just fine with me." Mayonaka Setsuki emerged from the fire exit door, her arms crossed before her chest.

Rei and his accomplices finally wriggled his fist loose and yanked it off the rooftop railing. "Mayonaka! Who asked _you_ anyway, ya weird li'l freak?"

Kaname's expression flinched. Bullying him was one thing. But if those bastards dared to lay one finger on that girl—

"You must not have any _real_ problem with Hagiri- _kun_ , _ne_? Considering the only fault that you could find in him is his parent-given name—"

"Get lost, Mayonaka!" barked a minion, one of whose cheeks was visibly redder than the other.

"Or should we call ya 'Setsu' instead?" Rei smirked at the only female student in their midst. "It ain't a girly, pretty name to me!"

Kaname took one step forward, willingly nearing himself to danger. "That's enough!"

"Really?" Setsu smirked back at him. "Last I checked, 'Rei' isn't so manly a name, either."

" _CHIKUSHOOOOO_!" Rei stampeded towards her, his dull gray eyes clouding, blinded by a vivid mental image of her face ripped to shreds. Setsu was already raising her hand, her palm facing away from her, when a stone flew straight into Rei's right eye. " _ITTEEEEE_!"

A gasp escaped Setsu's lips. A few inches away from her, Kaname held his left palm up, his right pointer and thumb curled together right above it.

"You asked for it."

"HAGIRI!" The leader of the first-year bullies slapped a hand over his injured eye. "THAT HURT, Y' FU—"

"Go to the clinic. Now," snapped a visibly upset Setsu, turning to Rei's two friends now frozen in a corner. "Go with him as well. He shouldn't go blind if no nerve was damaged."

"O-Okay!" stammered the two bungling sidekicks, promptly steering their blinded boss out the door.

Once their backs had disappeared from her view, Setsu turned to her other classmate bending over to pick up the projectile that had stabbed their class bully in the eye—a violet marble.

His smoldering lavender eyes glared at her ice blue. "Are you on _their_ side?"

"No." But icy eyes refused to melt. "I believe that you have every right to defend yourself from bullies picking on you. But I don't appreciate how you handled this."

Purple flames blazed even more. "But I did it to save _you_ —"

"Thank you for that!"

Kaname gasped at that, despite himself. Never in their many years as classmates had he heard her low, mellow voice yell out loud.

"But you _still_ could have blinded him!"

The headstrong, willful boy had no intention of losing this argument. "Should I have just stood back and _let_ him treat you like some punching bag—"

"We had other options. We could have done something else," Setsu pointed out. "I could have just run to the door and screamed for you to follow. And we could have just locked them in here until we tell the school authorities about what they tried—but failed—to do to us." She bit her lip, a tranquil remorse eclipsing her face. "Think about it. As it turned out, _we_ had hurt _them_ —not the other way around."

"What are _you_ so guilty about?" Kaname scoffed. "You only hurt him with words. That mouth of yours got you right into trouble. Next time, don't say anything that could provoke him in the first place!"

"One stops being a victim when one strikes back."

That was random of her. But she hardly surprised him anymore. He was used to her by now.

"No. Not all the time." An unconvinced Kaname shook his head. "There _is_ such a thing as self-defense."

"If you say so." A defiant Setsu looked away from him. "One stops being a victim when one strikes _first_."

"Still no. It still depends on the situation."

This time, Setsu grunted to herself, more exasperated than ever. "Fine. If you really want to be all politically correct about this: One stops being a victim when one strikes one's attacker _with the intention of hurting him_."

" _You're_ hell-bent on telling me I stopped being a victim and turned into an attacker just now."

"Oh, but I never said anything like that, Hagiri- _kun_. But if you think so, then I must say that I agree."

Lavender eyes narrowed. This girl with the boy name… That voice so peaceful, yet so inviting of big trouble…

"But our classmates," Kaname retorted in his defense. "They're mean. They use every opportunity to make you, me, and everyone else feel bad—"

"But as long as we did not do anything wrong, we should have nothing to feel bad about."

For a short, holy while, all fell still and silent.

Suddenly, Kaname strode towards her, eyeing the violet marble between his pointer and thumb. "Keep it." He took her hand and pressed the orb onto her palm. "If I don't have it, I can't use it to attack again."

And without another word, he stepped through the fire exit door and left.

For another short, holy while, Setsu peacefully gazed upon the small ball now cradled in her hand.

"I know that you meant well…"

Shy, thin lips threatened to curl up.

"… Hagiri- _kun_."

* * *

Sighing to herself, Setsu wilted onto her bed, tugging the Mushiyori girls' ribbon off her collar. As soon as her head flopped onto her pillow, she folded one arm behind her head and undid the topmost button of her blouse. "What a day."

She jammed an exhausted hand into the breast pocket of her school blouse and fished for a violet-colored marble. She eyed it closely.

Violet… Smoky as those smoldering eyes…

"I might have been too hard on him."

* * *

Sighing to himself, Kaname wilted onto his bed, tugging the Mushiyori boys' necktie off his collar. As soon as his head flopped onto his pillow, he folded one arm behind his head and undid the topmost button of his polo. "What a day."

He jammed a guilty hand into the side pocket of his school pants and fished for a blue-colored marble. He eyed it closely.

Blue… Glassy as those chilling eyes…

"I hate it when she's right!"

* * *

A pointer and thumb casually fingered a violet marble between them.

"Why did I assume that he was capable of intentionally aiming at that creep's eye?" Blue eyes narrowed. "Is it because…"

Setsu's fist clenched and swallowed a marble whole.

"… his Spirit Energy is much stronger now?"

* * *

A playful hand casually tossed a blue marble into the air.

"Why did I do that?" Violet eyes narrowed. "I could have just left her alone!"

Kaname's fist clenched and swallowed a marble whole.

"Troublemaker!"

* * *

 _So Nami_ -chan _has choir practice…_ _Father_ _will come home from work late, as usual…_ Lost in thought, Setsu kicked the stand of her mountain bike off the ground and began pedaling away. _Looks like it's just me and my_ _sketchpad_ _again tonight._

Suddenly, the front wheel of her bicycle ran over a bump on the gravel.

And within seconds, she found pedaling difficult… grueling… next to impossible. Her front tire now appeared much narrower than it once was. _Did I just get a flat?_

She parked her feet onto the ground and dismounted her bike. _Hn_. A brutish grumble boiling in her throat, she knelt upon jagged asphalt and inspected her quickly deflating rubber tire. _So I did. Good thing I'm still inside the school. But how—_

"Your front tire's flat."

 _Where did_ he _come from?_

"I know," Setsu said matter-of-factly, not even bothering to look up at the nosy newcomer.

An ignored—and consequently insulted—Hagiri Kaname folded his arms across his chest. "Hmph! There you go again! That mouth of yours is a real troublemaker, Mayonaka!"

"But I was just telling you that I already know—"

"Do you want my help or not?"

She merely shook her head. "Thanks, but no, thanks. I would rather not be indebted to you—"

"I wasn't actually asking," scoffed a snide Kaname, taking her bicycle by its handlebar. "You're coming with me whether you like it or not."

" _Hn_. _Someone_ 's trying to sound less helpful than he really is," chuckled a sarcastic Setsu, raising a knowing eyebrow.

His violet flames glared at her blue ice. "Shut up."

* * *

His right hand pushing her wobbly bicycle forward, Kaname eyed the crooked nail in between his left pointer and thumb. "I saw Rei and his guys with a box of nails this morning." He shot a sidelong glance at the girl steering his own bike alongside him. "Think _they_ could have had something to do with your—"

"As far as I'm concerned, a pesky nail on the road deflated my tire," Setsu studied the black mountain bike in her care. _His bike,_ she grudgingly confessed to herself. _It's so well-maintained. Even the spokes of his tires are clean through and through._ "I don't believe in attaching human faces to what could have been mere circumstance."

"Well, aren't you being nice." His young baritone dripped heavily of sarcasm. "For once."

" _Hn_. You mean I'm never?"

"You're nice to the wrong people."

"You're mean, Hagiri- _kun_. I don't know what your rabid fangirls see in you at all—"

"What?" A suddenly wide-eyed Kaname blinked. "What did you just call our classmates?"

"Not all of them. Only those who fawn over you so much—"

"Did you just call them 'rabid'?"

"Oh, clean your ears more often." A gruff, harrumphing Setsu looked away. "I don't want to have to repeat myself all the time."

"Or 'rapid'?" Kaname continued as if she had uttered nothing in edgewise at all. "Or 'rabbit'?"

 _Is he serious?_ Setsu's face contorted into a sour, awful mess. "Hagiri- _kun_ , you sound stu—"

"Careful, Mayonaka." A smug smirk lit his face. "Your smile is showing."

True enough, her lips were threatening to curl up at any moment in spite of herself. "If you don't want to see it, then don't make me laugh in the first place."

"But I want you to."

 _Wh… What?_ Setsu froze. _Uh… Is there something wrong with you?_

"You're always…" Kaname cleared his throat and looked away, visibly far more than uncomfortable in his own skin. "… sad."

 _So? Big deal. Why would you…_ "I'm just not as bouncy and bubbly as our other classmates, but I'm fine—"

"Your mom's been dead for years, hasn't she?"

Setsu bit back a gasp. _So he_ did _figure it out! Since when…?_

Her sudden silence struck him as unusual. "This is weird," Kaname chuckled to himself. "That mouth of yours all quiet and not getting you into trouble."

Setsu stared at him blankly, not knowing what to say and not wanting to say anything, either.

"Your eyes told me." He tossed the nail into the trash bin they had just passed. "Years ago. In art class."

 _And it took us_ this long… "You must have read my body language at that time—"

"What 'body language'?" He scoffed. "I told you, your eyes can talk!"

"Not literally," Setsu casually lifted Kaname's rear bike tire off a pothole in the road. "If you so insist, then what are they telling you right now?"

He stopped towing her bicycle and locked eyes with hers. At times those blue orbs looked so cold that they were unspeakably inhuman. This was one of those times. "Our classmates," he spat with disgust. "They're wrong about you. You're not weird. They just can't understand how your mind works. And no matter how hard I try, I can't ever figure you out myself."

Dimples shyly revealing themselves on the corners of her cheeks, Setsu grinned at him for the first time in both their lives. "So I'm not such a class anathema after all."

"A what?" Kaname cocked a confused brow.

 _Hagiri_ -kun, _are you… blushing?_ "Still believe I'm not as weird as they claim?"

"Getting less and less sure by the minute."

She chuckled to herself. _Oh, humans can be so amusing._

* * *

They walked each other's bikes all the way to the corner gasoline station.

Kaname pulled the hose beside a box-shaped apparatus and attached the end of the hose to the air valve of Setsu's deflated front tire.

 _He seems experienced with this…_ "Hagiri- _kun_ , have you done this before?"

"You bet." The thirteen-year-old boy pushed the control buttons of the box-like machine, masterfully adjusting its settings. "You don't know how many times that stupid Rei and his guys gave me a flat while I wasn't looking!" He double-checked the connection between the hose and the tire, and pressed the Start button. "See this?" He pointed to the box, intending to impress her. "It's called the pneumatic pump."

"'Pneumatic'?" repeated Setsu, the technical term seemingly impacting her more than he did. "It has something to do with pneumonia, _ne_?"

"Maybe," shrugged Kaname, chagrined over his failed attempt at showing her his smarts. "Both the pump and the disease have something to do with air. Air in tires… in people's lungs…"

 _Word association._ Setsu regarded Kaname secretly. _He's not too bad._

"Dad died of pneumonia." His lavender eyes hid beneath raven hair. "What did _your_ mom die of?"

Her blue eyes hid beneath caramel hair. _You will never let this go,_ ne _?_ A calloused hand rolled into a tight fist.

"Childbirth."

For a long, windy while, the two shared a still, sorrowful silence.

" _Mengo_." Setsu's trademark apology dropped not from her own lips, but his. "I'm sure it wasn't your fault."

Her blue eyes widened. _Hagiri_ -kun _, you just—_

"See, I've figured _that_ out, too. _That_ 's the way you apologize—your own version of ' _gomen_.' Give me more." A mischievous, meaningful smirk lit his face. "I want to solve you."

Setsu shook her head—slowly, carefully. "I'm not a puzzle, Hagiri- _kun_." _You must never know…_ "Not one of those kiddy games that you used to play."

… _who I truly am._

"Hey, those 'kiddy games' were fun," retorted the playful little boy in Kaname. "If you want, I could teach you to play—"

"And why do you believe that I would ever want to learn of those?"

He shrugged. "I've never seen you play any games with our classmates. So I thought you just didn't know how. Maybe your dad forgot to teach you how to have fun. Made you grow up too fast."

 _So you believe I don't act our age, then? It's not because Mother passed on too early_ … "How about you, Hagiri- _kun_? Did your mother raise you the same way?"

… _but because thirteen is not my real age._

Kaname bent down and took the hose off the air valve of Setsu's bike tire. "Nope. She told me to grow up whenever I want."

 _I am older than you mistakenly believe I am, Hagiri Kaname._

"All done." He gave her newly inflated tire a casual kick to test its solidity. "You can ride this baby home now."

 _Much older_.

"Actually, I…" Just then, Setsu knocked herself on her temple lightly, penalizing herself for what she was about to confess. "… don't want to. Not yet."

His lavender eyes suddenly blazed aflame. "I know where we can go."

* * *

A reddish pink sun shamefully blushed at the two, hiding from them in between mountains across the horizon. It was getting late. The swings of the Yukimi City Park playground creaked and groaned under their weight, but neither of them minded.

"How old is your bike?" Short, broken raven hair flailed with the crisp dusk wind.

Her swing swayed backward just as his went forward. "I've been riding it since we were ten." His question took her by surprise. "Why?"

"It looks that old, all right!" chuckled Kaname, the metal chains of his swing laughing along with him. "Why don't you ask your old man to buy you a new one? Tell him you've outgrown that one."

"I don't need a new one," murmured a tranquil Setsu, shaking her head. "It still works perfectly fine."

"Mayonaka, it's rusty in places I can't even reach."

"Well, I still wouldn't want my father to spend for a new one anytime soon." Her eyelids slid closed on their own, as they always did when a soft, kind wind combed her hair. "Single parenthood must be hard enough as it is without me imposing an impractical wish-list upon him."

Kaname harrumphed. "I'm not as thoughtful. Mom knows I want a motorcycle soon."

Languid eyelids suddenly snapped back open and blinked. "But your bicycle still works perfectly well—"

"It's too slow."

Setsu heaved a hopeless sigh. "You're spoiled, Hagiri Kaname."

"No. _I'm_ normal for our age. _You're_ not."

One hand still hanging on to one of the metal chains of her swing, she massaged her temple with her free hand. "You're a pain."

* * *

"Sorry." Kaname hung his head low.

"You kept my daughter out _this_ late?"

His elbows on their dining table, the man of the Mayonaka household parted his fingers and pressed their tips together to form a steeple. Setsu's human father had been restlessly sitting—not to mention waiting for his only child—in their dining room since he arrived home.

An accountable, guilt-ridden Setsu stepped in between them. " _I_ lost track of time. Please leave Hagiri- _kun_ out of this. He was only keeping me company."

"My point exactly…! You wouldn't have gotten home this late if he _wasn't_ 'keeping you company'!"

Sighing more in defeat than acceptance, a crestfallen Setsu turned to the boy at their front door. " _Mengo_ , Hagiri- _kun_. You don't deserve this."

Lavender orbs took refuge beneath raven hair. The apologetic Kaname refused to meet anyone else's eyes. "Again, I'm sorry."

"You should be."

A fuming Mayonaka Tsuzuku slammed the condominium door smack on the boy's face.

Setsu felt a headache coming on. A calloused drawing hand massaged a pulsing temple. "Why? Was it because I arrived home criminally late, or because he just happened to be male?"

The authoritarian father ignored her question altogether. "Go to your room."

Resisting all irrational bodily urges, the dismayed daughter turned her back on her overprotective single parent and obeyed his order with neither problem nor protest. She closed her bedroom door behind her and leaned her back against it, heaving a long, heavy sigh. _This is not going to be easy._

 _Have a safe trip home, Hagiri_ -kun.

* * *

Why had they never been seatmates? Why was he always assigned to sit rows and rows behind her? From his classroom chair, all he could see of her was her hair.

Hers was the longest hair in their class now. He secretly, silently hoped that she would never have it cut. It stirred a fond memory in him. He just loved nuzzling into his mother's soft brown coat of locks as a coddled, toddled child.

Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, Kaname spotted two male hands inching closer and closer to that glorious head of hair. The boy sitting directly behind Setsu was slowly, carefully tying handfuls of her hair around the back of her seat.

"Idiot," Kaname muttered to himself, gripping the small white pencil eraser in his hand. "Don't think I don't see what you're doing."

Why couldn't she feel what was going on behind her back—literally? Oh, right. She must be busy either furiously jotting down notes or doodling in her notebook.

Most likely doodling. As usual.

Refusing to take his eyes off the ongoing practical joke in their midst, Kaname pinched the white chunk of rubber between his right pointer and thumb.

"Get mad at me if you want. But I don't want you getting up from your seat and carrying it with you."

And in the blink of an eye, a rubber eraser knocked a prank-pulling hand away.

" _Itte_!" cried the prankster, breaking the holy silence in the room. The junior high sophomores of section three all whirled to eye him curiously. The lecturer scribbling on the blackboard paused and raised a suspicious eyebrow at him.

But Setsu knowingly glared at another boy.

 _It was you,_ ne _?_ Those cold blue eyes of hers… They pointed an imaginary accusatory finger straight at him. _What did he do?_

Reveling in a private victory, Kaname smirked at her from all the way across the room. "Tell you later."

* * *

They had planned on doing it for some time now. Finally, Setsu and Nami pushed their desks together, facing each other's, right by the Year Two Class Three door. They will rearrange them back to normal after lunch, anyway.

"Are you serious, Setsu- _chan_? You haven't had a crush on _anyone_ your whole life?"

Nami raised her chopsticks to her lips, shoving a heap of glutinous white rice into her mouth. "Buth we're oh-ready churning _fifcheen_! It'ch rearry, rearry rare for girrsh rike ush not to rike anyone at aw-ll!"

"Nami." A brutish grumble boiled in Setsu's throat. "Kindly swallow before you speak."

"Okay." Nami hurriedly gulped down the last of her rice. "Hey, I know what you're doing! You're changing our topic again like you always do!" Her cheeks puffed and pinked all over as she pouted. "Are you avoiding this conversation because you _do_ already like someone and you're just not telling me?"

Setsu brought the rim of a cup to her lips and quietly sipped her spicy soup. Then she looked up. "I don't think I see anyone that way, Nami- _chan_. But I do enjoy drawing someone. Aside from you and my father, of cour—"

"WHO?" Minaku practically sprung from her seat in senseless, giddy excitement. "Tell me! Tell me! _Tell me!_ "

Setsu sighed at her best friend's hyperactive energy. "Nami- _chan_ , you must promise me that you will never—I repeat, _never_ —even dare speak his name. That is, if you manage to guess who he is."

"Whaaat? No fair, Setsu- _chan_!" Pouting cutely again, Nami crossed her arms before her chest and harrumphed. "I want to know his name!"

"You might figure it out for yourself after I tell you _everything else about him_ …" Small, shy lips curled up. "… if only you would let me…"

"Okay!" Excited, impatient hands clapped together. "Go!"

"He is Japanese, just like we are."

"Uh-huuuh…" Nami nodded mechanically, almost like a toy bobble-head.

"In junior high school as well."

Nami's hazel eyes widened. "Ooh! He's _our_ age!"

"I can't say." Setsu's gaze fell. "He lives with his mother."

"A mama's boy!" cried Nami, snapping her fingers. She couldn't believe it. The distant, disinterested Mayonaka Setsuki actually _had_ a secret someone to share with her! They had known each other since they were six, yet Nami had neither known nor heard of Setsu's secret human art subject before. Such a mystery!

"Unfortunately, he no longer has a father."

"Wait…" A brain wave washed over Nami. "Is… he… who… I… think… he… is…?"

"Don't say it."

"But—"

All of a sudden, icy blue eyes sent even icier shivers down Nami's spine. "If you want me to go on, then please, don't say it."

An intimidated Nami sighed in resignation. "Okay."

"Something makes him… different."

"'Different'?" echoed Nami, blinking repeatedly in confounded confusion. "'Different' how?"

"Unique. Not like anyone else in this world."

The bridge of Nami's nose wrinkled. "I don't get it."

"He's strong. He gets into many fights, though. At least he never starts them."

"I'm losing you, Setsu- _chan_!" moaned a Nami seemingly suffering from throes of actual physical pain.

"And lastly, when you spell his name in English—"

" _Mou_ , Setsu- _chan_!" A suddenly _chibi_ Nami magically raised a picket sign of protest from out of nowhere. "Just give it to me in Japanese!"

Setsu refused with a vigorous shake of her head, an annoyed yet amused chuckle escaping her lips. "When you spell his name in English…" she repeated. "… it has six letters… and begins with a…"

Her fingers tingling while touching her lips, Nami held her breath.

"… 'K'."

A stunned Nami staggered back in her seat, jerking it forward and nearly toppling her rice bowl off her desk. "So it _is_ —!"

"I can't say." Her eyes now closed, Setsu calmly took another sip of her soup.

"Are you sure you just like _drawing_ him?" Nami grinned toothily, meaningfully. "You know Setsu- _chan_ , if you've been drawing this guy for a long time now, you could learn to _love_ —"

"I _have_ known him for years," Setsu responded especially quietly, her eyes still closed. "But I don't love him. I just don't want to…"

"'To'…?"

"… make the same mistake again."

Behind the Year Two Class Three door, smoldering lavender eyes narrowed.

"What mistake…?"

* * *

"I know," Setsu tucked her hands behind her back and clasped them together. "You have choir practice. I'll just go on my own."

"I'm sorry, Setsu- _chan_ …"

She turned her back on Nami and walked away, momentarily looking over her shoulder. "Call you tonight, _ne_?"

"Sure!"

Setsu strode back into the Year Two Class Three room, roving eyes in search of someone. Two girls were currently sweeping chalk dust off the platform. One was dusting the teacher's table. A boy was clapping two spent blackboard erasers together. And he was mopping the floor.

"Hagiri- _kun_."

All the designated student janitresses of the day whirled toward her at the mere mention of his name. Glamorously plucked and shaped eyebrows crumpled into intense, telling frowns. Since when had their beloved Hagiri- _sama_ and that Mayonaka freak been on speaking terms with each other?

The visibly unwilling janitor Kaname wiped sweat off his brow with his wrist, his ears slightly perking up to that voice he knew—and silently loved—so well. "Mayonaka."

"You took the Meiou Private High School entrance examination too, _ne_?" inquired Setsu, already knowing the answer to her own question. "According to Nami- _chan_ , the results have just been released. I'll go check if our names are on the list of passers."

"Don't bother looking for mine," harrumphed Kaname, sliding a soppy, sloppy mop across the tiled classroom floor. "I didn't make it."

"Really? Last I checked, you aced a test that you were sure you failed."

A teasing smirk twisted the boy's lips. "You 'checked'? You mean you actually gave a damn about me?"

"Whatever I tell you here and now, you are sure to dangle over my head in the future. Which is why I won't give you any such satisfaction."

The undemonstrative, unaffectionate girl looked away and promptly trudged out of their room.

"I'm off."

* * *

She had just stepped into the City of Yukimi and was only halfway to the Meiou private campus when a thin needle of rain pricked her warm, rosy cheek.

Setsu held her palm up and gazed upon the gloomy heavens, swollen gray clouds shadowing the city, promising her a shower at any moment.

 _Great_. Another icy bead fell onto her outstretched palm. _Just when I didn't take my bicycle._

* * *

To Kaname, the rain was always much more pleasant to listen to when it came down in tempestuous torrents. Still gripping the handle of a school mop, he fondly looked out the sliding glass window of his classroom.

Suddenly, it hit him.

"Stupid." He muttered between gritted teeth. "Out in the rain and doesn't have an umbrella again." Lavender eyes hid beneath raven hair. "Always asking for trouble."

Just then, the student janitors and janitresses of the day jolted in shock upon hearing a heavy wooden mop handle loudly smack their newly cleaned floor. One startled girl caught sight of a familiar flash of jet black hair bolting out the door.

"Hagiri- _sama_!" she gasped. "Where are you going?"

* * *

Her uniform and hair clung to her like second skin.

A drenched, wretched Mayonaka Setsuki silently stood before the Meiou entrance gates, crossing her arms before her chest. But it was no use. She could not keep herself warm that way. Not with her soaked sleeves.

She tilted her head and eyes up to read the announcement posted on the campus billboard.

 _Meiou._

 _If I made it, then I could finally be in the same—_

At that moment, Setsu stopped her thought in its tracks before it ventured into dangerous territory.

 _What am I thinking? I must not…_

She sighed to herself, a cloud of cold mist escaping her lips. A gust of rain-chilled air wrapped around her and froze her to her core.

Glassy blue eyes scanned through the list of surnames beginning with the letter A. The name 'Akasaki Minaku' lit them up.

 _Nami_ -chan _was accepted!_

The same eyes were already ferreting out another name in the list when they suddenly betrayed her. From the corner of her eye, a Meiou student strolled past the school gate.

A gasp caught in her throat.

 _K_ …

* * *

"Damn, this is slow!" An impatient, irritated Hagiri Kaname candidly cursed his bicycle under his breath as he sped up his pedaling.

She must be soaking wet by now.

From the distance, he could make out the gates of the Meiou campus, its students casually, leisurely walking out in umbrellas. A boy and a girl took cover under the same umbrella, the guy clutching its handle between them as his girlfriend blissfully chatted away with him, her arm flailing wildly at her side.

And there she was, tacitly trembling before the entrance bulletin board.

"Mayonaka!"

She was holding herself close, trying to warm herself from the biting cold of the driving rain. Were her teeth chattering? Or was she biting her lip?

What—or who—was she looking at like that? Those haunting eyes of hers weren't as cold as he had expected them to be. She was just staring off into the distance in a strange silence, those ice blue eyes especially glassy… blank… lost… absent…

Gone.

* * *

A well-maintained black bicycle suddenly collapsed by her feet. Its owner clapped a hand on her forehead, feeling for her temperature.

 _His hand,_ Setsu's eyes remained still, tranquil. _It's so warm. Or am I just—_

"You're hot!" exclaimed a visibly upset Kaname, entirely unaware of the color flooding to his cheeks. "I—I mean, you've got fever!"

A long, listless pause lingered between them. Until she broke the silence with her usual "I know."

"Let's get you back home." Kaname raised his bike, propped it up against the brick wall next to the Meiou Private Academy gate, and scooped her up in his arms.

 _HN?_ Cautious instinct instantly arched Setsu's spine and legs away from his carrying hands. _Put me down!_ "What are you—"

"What does it _look like_ I'm doing?" Kaname spat at the miserable, vulnerable creature still stubbornly squirming against his chest. He set her down on the seat of his bicycle—whether she wanted him to or not. "You need to get dry, fast!"

He swung a leg over his bike and plopped onto what remained of its seat behind her. They were neither comfortable nor safe in his trusty vehicle, but it would have to do for now.

"Tsuki." A rough, gruff whisper warmed a frostbitten ear. "Pull yourself together."

"I'm fine, Hagiri- _kun_. You don't have to do this." A most ungrateful Setsu shot a defiant glare at the boy pressing against her back. _Wait, what?_ "What did you just call me?"

Kaname choked on a gasp just as he wheeled away, his left hand on the steering handlebar of his bike, his right arm curling round her waist. She needed not hear _that_ slip of his tongue again. "Don't fall. Hold on to me."

"Hagiri Kaname." A shaky Setsu still managed to scoff threateningly in spite of her blurring vision and growing lethargy. The steady rise in her body temperature was slowly but surely draining her of all energy. "What. Did. You. Just. Call—"

"'Tsuki'!" cried a reluctant, red-faced Kaname, suddenly feeling her body slipping away from his and pulling her closer. It may have served him well all this time, but he was still disappointed with his bike for its individual seating capacity. Now more than ever, he badly wanted that motorcycle. A big one. And a two-seater. "I've been thinking. Don't like it? Sounds much better than 'Setsu' to me."

' _Tsuki'…?_ "Go back." Hiding her eyes beneath her hair, an ill-at-ease Setsuki deliberately dismissed the nickname, stiffly refusing to speak of endearments at the moment. "I haven't found our names on the list yet—"

"Forget it." That strong, warm arm tightened around her, smoldering lavender eyes burning more brightly than ever before. "I'm taking you home no matter what."

"Don't. Please. My father's not home yet. Remember what happened last time? If he catches you there—"

"What about _my_ home?"

"That's even worse. He'll have _more_ ammunition against you."

"A _hospital_!"

"That's not necessary, Hagiri- _kun_. I'm fine."

"Oh, yeah? Well, _I'm_ not!"

" _Hn_?" Her blue eyes widened and blinked.

His lavender eyes hid beneath dripping raven hair. "It makes me sick."

Setsu hung her head low. _You're blowing this out of proportion, Hagiri_ -kun _… If you would only leave me alone, I could just turn back ti—_

"I never want to see you that sad again. Ever."

She threw a sidelong glance behind them. Two small silhouettes sharing one umbrella headed in the opposite direction, slowly ebbing in the distance. She sighed to herself.

 _And so we part again._

"Keep that hair of yours away from your face," commanded a demanding yet distressed Kaname. "You're getting real pale and I can't see it."

At that, Setsu hung her head even lower, dripping wet streaks of sandy brown forelocks veiling her face from his eyes all the more. "Why should I? That's not a good thing to see anyway."

"Do you always leave it alone like that?" A frown crossed the prickly boy's face. "Don't wanna make your old man buy you stuff for your hair?"

"Exactly."

"Too bad." He buried his chin into that damned damp scalp. "You don't care for it at all. Maybe I like it better than you do."

At that very moment, Setsu found her cold cheeks warming up by themselves. _Hagiri_ -kun _…_ She snubbed his most unusual display of affection with a brutish grunt. "Thank you. Could we just… be quiet now?"

She followed her own word and fell silent. Within seconds, her eyelids sank. She resisted the lure of their urge, but they were closing on their own…

 _No, Mayonaka Setsuki. Your human body isn't this weak. Don't let that fever get you down…_

"You know, you could cry if you want."

Weak, heavy eyelids snapped back open. Did Hagiri Kaname just… say that…?

"Guess who I learned _that_ from a long time ago."

Blue ice met violet flames. "But I don't feel like crying."

"Don't worry." The slender arm keeping them together clutched her even closer. "I won't look if you don't want me to."

An exhausted hand, calloused from household chores and habitual drawing, reached for Kaname's shirt sleeve and gripped the fabric tight.

Now-peaceful lavender orbs softly gazed upon a paling female face, unable to tell if the drops rolling down those now-colorless cheeks had fallen from not so blue skies or all too blue eyes.

* * *

He sneezed for the eighteenth time in five minutes. His disgusting, deafening reflex reactions should have awakened her by now.

But she was still out like a light.

After drying it, the kindly nurse had tied the soundly sleeping Setsu's hair with a rose-red ribbon. The strangest smile threatened to curl Kaname's lips. Ribbons in her hair suited her. If only she was feminine enough to accept it.

"… A…"

"Huh?" Kaname froze for a split second. The girl of his dreams was speaking in hers. Taking care not to place any of his weight anywhere on her, he sat upon her bed, slowly sliding beside her right arm.

"… a… ma…"

Still fast asleep, Setsu squinted her already tightly shut eyes.

"'Mama'?" A frowning Kaname filled in the blanks, attempting a wild guess at what—whom—she saw or spoke to in dreamland. "Your mom?"

She suddenly bit her lip. She sank her front teeth so deeply into her lower lip that the soft layer of labial tissue broke and bled.

"Tsuki, don't do that," warned Kaname, seizing the sleeping form by her shoulders.

Within seconds, a thread-like leak of blood trickled down her lower lip. Her face wrapped, wrinkled, and writhing in an unspoken agony, the still-unconscious Setsu parted her lips and screamed without a sound.

"Stop that!" cried a now fretful, fearful boy on a local hospital bed. "Shut up!"

Kaname dug his fingers into the sandy brown locks blanketing her neck, drew her face to his own, and silenced her lips with his.

* * *

 _Stay… Go away…_

A strong yet soothing pressure touched her lips and refused to let go. A heavy but warm breath tickled her once numb nose. Reluctant eyelids carelessly fluttered open.

 _K—!_

She gasped right into his mouth. A calloused drawing hand clenched a thin hospital bedspread.

 _Kaname…_

 **Continued  
** in **Chapter Two:  
** _ **Sinking into Despair**_

So… The childhood and first love of our devilishly handsome hit man (in the making).

How did you find it? ^u^

It may interest you to know that the female character named Mayonaka Setsuki (first nicknamed "Setsu," and later, "Tsuki") is _NOT actually an original character (OC)_ , but a very minor one-time character from actual YYH canon…!

She is the (once-anonymous) female character who appeared in a mere cameo alongside the Sniper himself in Volume 17 of (the English-translated edition of) the YYH manga published by VIZ Media—you can find her in pages 95 to 97 of that particular edition—as well as Episode 94 of the anime. If you can recall that episode, she was the dark brown-haired girl sporting a pink jacket with a light blue collar, faded denim jeans, and sneakers... the unnamed character capable of psychically reading the memories of the cruelly murdered animal lying upon the grass, right before Kaname's and her eyes. I just happened to give her a name and a personality here.

[And I firmly believe that "the girl who was with the Sniper" in that one scene was _not necessarily_ his "sister"—just because the narrator of the YYH anime (whom we all know by now was Koenma's right-hand ogre and sidekick, Saotome Jorge) mentioned in that scene that Kaname "has a sister," to me it did _not necessarily_ follow that the female character in that very scene was indeed his sister. I personally thought that she and Kaname were together—romantically. *blushes in giddy feels*]

To find out what becomes of them—as well as how the Dark Angel Sensui Shinobu discovers Kaname's potential for evil—then do look forward to **Chapter Two:** _ **Sinking into Despair**_.


	2. Sinking into Despair

**Warnings**

This chapter is kick-ass long.

And this is by far the deepest I have _ever_ plunged into the abysmal, unholy darkness of _Yu Yu Hakusho_ —specifically that of the Sensui saga.

So please, beware of **adult language** and **content** , then. But nothing too out of the ordinary for YYH, really.

Just giving all of you a heads-up as regards any subtle implications or insinuations of **self-harm** that you may come across in this chapter. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), please, _please_ do NOT imitate the actions and decisions of this sinfully flawed character. For your own sake—and for the sake of those who love you. ^-^

Again… **Happy reading~!** **\\(^o^)/**

* * *

 **Chapter Two  
** _ **Sinking into Despair**_

The endless gush and gurgle of the tap from his bathroom faucet.

There was no other sound quite like it.

Especially when the water first pools into a murky puddle atop the sticky, hopelessly clogged drain—only to sift through the old, grimy filter—then trickle onto the rusty, leaking pipe beneath the sink.

It was—supposed to be—the last sound he would ever hear.

A lock of golden blonde hair elegantly curled round the gleaming, bleeding blade.

Young, wide eyes the hue of sapphires widened even more to the unbelievable sight unfolding before them.

What little blood trickled from his freshly slit skin had mysteriously, magically beaded together on his cold, immaculate white bathroom tiles, stringing together like a sacrificial crimson rosary, then bubbling… boiling…

"H-Huh?" The blue-eyed blonde boy stammered in nervousness. Blood doesn't boil when mixed with water, right?

So why was his...

… growing legs?

… and…

… and…

… taking shape?

* * *

Did he go to the right cinema?

For the thirty-ninth time in that minute alone, Kido Asato checked the position of the dials on his wristwatch. Good thing Cine Milano was just across the town plaza. He could sneak a glance at the entrance ticketing booth without leaving his spot by the plaza tower.

But even the official clock at the pinnacle of the Mushiyori Park tower statue confirmed that the battery of his watch wasn't running on low or empty.

Where was she?

Could she be sick?

The blonde student in his final year of junior high looked for her for what seemed the thousandth time. Hey, that short-haired brunette in Kasanegafuchi uniform looked cute. Who was she waiting for by that lamppost?

But she wasn't whom _he_ was waiting for.

Kido winced to himself. Those mosquitoes again. This time, they hovered right above that cute girl's head.

And the poor, sweet lass had no idea.

"Why can't she see 'em?" The unwitting human psychic muttered under his breath, more to himself than to anyone else. "Why can't _anyone else_ see 'em? They really should shoo 'em away—or swat 'em—before they bite…"

All around him, majority of the two hundred and fifty thousand citizens that made up the population of the City of Mushiyori walked along and passed him by, not one of them even just remotely aware of the swarm of exotic—oversized, greenish—mosquitoes with the bloodiest, most bloodthirsty of eyes flitting in their midst. A bystander would slap her own bare, exposed forearm or scratch the back of his neck on occasion, but no one was truly alarmed.

Or, at least as alarmed as Kido thought they should have been by now.

After all, this unholy plague and pestilence had only been growing worse for the past month.

Kido shook his head to himself. "I wouldn't be surprised if she got bitten an' came down wit' the flu or somethin'."

He sighed to himself just as five tall shadows drew closer and closer to him—to the point that they soon loomed over him, imposing themselves upon and invading his personal space.

"Face it, bub! She ain't comin'!"

Kido looked up to meet five pairs of evilly gleaming eyes. "Who—Who are you?"

At that moment, they smirked all at once, their teeth gleaming just as evilly as all their eyes.

* * *

"How many times do I hafta tell ya?" cried Kido, his face now lumpy and bumpy from all the bruises and beatings that he had had to live through for the past few minutes. "I ain't lookin' for any trouble!"

"Well, too bad, kid!" exclaimed the tallest of the five gangsters towering over him and surrounding him on all sides. "Trouble found ya anyway!"

Kido winced to himself again. Oh, the trouble with having a face that _attracted_ trouble from left and right…

He couldn't see the time on the Mushiyori plaza clock anymore. Heck, these jackasses wouldn't even let him sneak a peek at his own watch…!

But the sun was already setting.

Maybe she was on her way to Cine Milano by now. The last full showing of _The Crying Game_ was at seven.

The dastardliest, most despicable-looking of the troublemaking bunch was just about to add yet another lump and bump to Kido's already badly disfigured face when suddenly, the bully's fist froze in mid-punch—a mere sliver of space away from his victim's already broken, bleeding nose.

"Hey, man!" spat the shortest of the five. "Slug 'em already!"

He himself closed the gap between his tightly clenched fist and Kido's jaw—right out in the open and just asking to be clobbered.

Yet the bastard found that he could not move a single muscle.

* * *

It was just a marble. A small, stupid marble.

Yet Rei could not deny that that small, stupid marble had inflicted more damage than he ever imagined.

"Come _on_ , Rei! You've been wearin' that stupid thing for _months_!"

"Yeah! Lose the eye patch already!"

"I hear some o' the underclass kids've been callin' ya a _pirate_ by now."

This time, the most notorious and feared class bully of Mushiyori High School had had enough.

"YOU IDIOTS!" The bulky, burly boy yelled at his two sidekicks at the very top of his lungs. "Y' think I'm _gettin' off_ on wearin' this damn thing or somethin'? It still hurts 'til now!"

But his two trusty cronies would not have any of it.

"Jus' suck it up, Rei!"

"Yeah, don't be a big crybaby!"

"Oh, yeah? Let's see _you_ 'not be a big crybaby' over _this_!"

Suddenly, Rei yanked off the black eye patch that had been concealing his injured right eye from view for quite some time now.

And just as suddenly, the only two boys on campus to whom he could actually bring himself to show his bad, busted eye froze in shock.

One of them got his words all caught in his tongue. "IT—!"

So the other one finished his sentence for him. "IT'S STILL _BLEEDING_!"

"See? _See_? See it _now_?" insisted a fiery Rei, fighting his hardest to hold on to what little pride he had left. "Jus' _look_ at what that goddamn pretty boy did t' me!"

But the dark, demonic obelisk that was his bad, busted right eye was not exactly a sight for sore eyes.

"I, uh…" The shorter one of his minions squirmed to himself despite himself. "I'd rather not."

"I said _LOOK_ AT IT!" Rei roared. And _they_ were calling _him_ a 'crybaby' when they themselves couldn't even stand two seconds of his eye? Hah! Pathetic!

A shaky shudder racking his entire body, his shorter lackey shut his own eyes tightly, then with a wince, dared a one-second peek at that gruesome, gory horror movie prop of an eye.

"But still, Rei…" His other, taller bootlicker kept his wits about him—and his fear at bay. "'Twas jus' a tiny, itty-bitty marble… It _can't_ be _that_ bad!"

"Oh, yeah?" Rei was fast getting tired of this. What part of 'IT HURTS' can't they understand? "Try pokin' _yer own_ eye! See how much _you_ like it!"

And, to their surprise, the taller teenager suddenly, violently shoved his own thumb right into his own right eye.

And he himself had no idea why.

"HA!" Once cowering from the unholy macabre of Rei's damaged eye, the shorter boy now regained his confidence from his fellow chump's sudden, strange display of unthinking, unquestioning obedience to their big boss's authority. "You so stupid, dumbass—!"

At this point, a new idea struck Rei like a lightning bolt. He turned to his once cowardly cringing, now maniacally guffawing minion.

"An' you think _yer_ such a genius or somethin'? Go punch yerself in the noggin!"

"Huh? Why should I—"

He had not even finished his retort when—beyond all logic, reason, and comprehension, and completely against his own will—he clenched his trusty punching hand into a tight fist and closed the gap between his now-tightened fist and his own face. Once the blow connected to his cheekbone, his head fell forward, his chin jutting out, and he opened his mouth to cry out, "WHAT?! WHAT'RE Y' DOIN' TO ME, REI?"

Even the other one—the one who had thumbed his own right eye—was now catching on as well. "Stop jerkin' us around, Rei! We're not _puppets_ 'ere!"

"'Puppets,' huh…?" Rei repeated slowly, a disturbing cross between a smirk and a sneer just as slowly but surely spreading across his lips.

* * *

He would never forget their faces.

After all, it wasn't every day that he got to watch from up close a strikingly devilishly handsome, slender yet strapping teenage boy in Mushiyori High uniform publicly going out with a much plainer-looking girl of around the same age who, despite not sporting any stereotypical prescription eyewear whatsoever, had an air of a… a… a smart-aleck know-it-all… around her, what with her undeniable Meiou Private High uniform.

The attendant could only blink and watch on in helpless, hopeless silence as the daring, devil-may-care bad boy knocked down yet another plush toy lined along the rack.

He had won his date yet another stuffed animal for the eleventh—consecutive—time.

The man behind the counter shuddered at the thought.

This cool kid was an excellent shot. Even with a mere pop gun.

And his geeky girlfriend must have also noticed his incredible winning streak by now—after all, at this point she could no longer carry any more prize toys in her already heavily burdened arms.

"You're on a roll, Ame- _kun_." The brunette girl from the private academy exclusively for the most talented and elite of scholars and intellectuals of the entire nation chuckled uneasily, sheepishly. "A born natural. And I appreciate your winning all of this for me. But still, we should leave some for the _other_ players to win too, _ne_?"

The game stall attendant's shoulders sank in secret, silent relief. His thoughts exactly. At this rate, that girl's arrogant, ambitious "Ame- _kun_ " was running him right out of business!

The man in the mandatory light blue apron was just about to bend over to retrieve a plastic bag from under the counter to hand over to his female customer—for her to drop all her new prize toys into—when all three of them suddenly overheard two rough, raspy voices thundering into the tent.

"She's right, 'Ame- _kun_ '! Leave some for _the rest of us_!"

"Yeah! Learn t' _share_ , will ya?!"

Both Hagiri Kaname and Mayonaka Setsuki whirled behind them and found three most familiar—and most unwelcome—rugged, ragged boys sauntering right into the shooting gallery stall.

From the distance, an impeccably, imposingly tall yet slender man dressed all in black with his hair slicked back watched all of them from the safety of the shadows of a nearby concrete wall.

"A guy in Mushiyori uniform and a girl in Meiou," scoffed the tallest and burliest of the three ragtag ruffians, a most noticeable black patch over his right eye.

Even without knowing any of them personally, Sensui Shinobu could already deduce that all of these teenagers shared a past together. They had a back story to tell. A score to settle with each other. He could sniff it in the air.

"Hey, pretty boy!" The bulky bully with the eye patch spat at the raven-haired shooting game player and the girl standing by his side. Both eyes of smoldering lavender and icy blue narrowed to the words. Sensui noticed.

"Y' two should swap uniforms!" Rei mocked on. "Ya'd look better!"

A satisfied smirk twisted Sensui's lips. This one-eyed kid seemed to know just how to push their buttons. This was getting more and more interesting by the second.

He wanted to see them in action. And from the look of things, it was only a matter of time.

The Dark Angel was willing to wait.

After all, one—or even more—of them could be the very psychics whom he and Itsuki had been seeking.

"Just leave us alone, Rei," spat the raven-haired, lavender-eyed boy wielding the plastic rifle loaded with wooden wine corks for bullets.

'Rei,' huh? Sensui's eyebrow twitched to the name. So he _was_ right—they _did_ know each other.

And if he was right again, these two cross, cranky lovebirds may have even had something to do with that other kid having one bad, busted eye.

"Uh…" The blue-eyed brunette girl beside the armed boy mumbled, not from a sense of uncertainty, but from sarcasm. "You might want to think hard—and think twice—before making fun of Ame- _kun_ while he's holding _that_."

And, given that her hands were full (of stuffed animals) at the time, she jerked her head towards the fake firearm still in Hagiri Kaname's hands.

But Rei and his minions didn't take her seriously at all. They laughed themselves well out of breath.

"An' y' expect us t' be _scared_ of _that_ cheap li'l _toy_ gun?" taunted one of the shorter boys flanking that Rei kid.

The other, even shorter boy pointed his thumb at their big boss. "Jus' y'all wait an' see what _super cool_ , _super awesome_ trick our main man _Rei_ here can do t' _you_!"

Sensui's eyebrow twitched again. A psychic Ability?

Did that boy named Rei have one?

"Thanks, but no, thanks." The girl passed up the not-so-kind offer, wanting to wave it off with a free hand, but given her handheld cargo at the time, simply shook her head instead. "We're not all that interested."

One of the two boys on Rei's side noticed that she had to strain her neck up—above her mountain of prizes—just to shake her head at them.

"Hey, weirdo! Y' look like y' need _help_ wit' those!"

And with a malicious smirk, he knocked over the tall tower in her carrying arms with one all-sweeping swipe—grabbing a rare, limited-edition action figure for himself.

The blue-eyed brunette stepped aside as the heap of plush toys once in her arms now rained down upon the asphalt ground by her feet.

Setsu shook her head again, this time without straining her neck anymore. "You could have just _asked_ for one, you know."

"I _mean_ it, Rei," spat Kaname once more, this time with simmering, smoldering scorn. "Leave. Us. Alone."

Rei's one remaining good eye glared straight at him. "Oh, yeah? Why should we do as y' say, huh pretty boy? Huh?"

"Because I can always do _this_."

Just then, a wooden wine cork shot from right out of the barrel of the parlor game rifle—and straight into Rei's right eye.

The one with the black patch already over it.

A perfect shot.

This was it.

Sensui could not contain himself any more.

 _This_ boy had potential.

The power… the precision… the pitilessness... worthy of him and his cause.

He just _had_ to have him.

* * *

" _ITTEEEEE_!" Rei cried out in pain, automatically clapping a hand over his already injured—and still bandaged—eye.

Having already seen the gruesome, macabre state of his eye _before_ this latest attack, his two trusty sidekicks decided to take charge and control of their current situation. Realizing that it was fast getting out of hand—and that Rei just might lose his eye _for good_ this time—they grabbed their bulky, burly boss by the arms and made for a hasty retreat.

"THIS AIN'T THE LAST YOU'LL SEE OF US!" thundered the taller boy.

" _WE'LL GET YA FOR THIS!_ " threatened the other, shorter one. "HAGIRI KANAME! MAYONAKA SETSUKI!"

Upon hearing his Tsuki's name pass the lips of Rei's henchman, Kaname cocked the trigger of his pop gun once more—this time taking aim toward the direction of the short slanderer.

As the hit man in the making fired one wooden wine cork after another at the three boys now quickly disappearing into the distance, the Dark Angel cocked his own eyebrow.

Even if he could, this 'Hagiri Kaname' boy was not infusing any of his _reiki_ into any of his shots. At all.

Yet he was hitting everyone—right on target.

He was just… _that_ … excellent a shot. Truly a born natural.

But the girl beside him did not seem all that impressed with her date.

"Hagiri Kaname," she spat in a disappointed, even dissuading, tone of voice, thrusting a deterring arm before her still silently yet strongly provoked boyfriend. "Enough."

Oh? She's reacting _negatively_ to his hostility? But he had unleashed his dark side for _her_ protection…

"They're not hurting us anymore."

Now the malicious, meddlesome onlooker wondered about the girl. It was glaringly obvious to him now. To snag the boy for himself, he would have to get _her_ out of the picture.

Suddenly, a chuckle escaped Sensui's lips. His current train of thought was bordering on something that Itsuki would be much better off never finding out about.

"In fact, _we_ may have hurt _them_ even _more_ than they tried to hurt us." He overheard the girl go on.

Just then, the Dark Angel sensed it: a certain… energy… emanating from the narrow-minded, nagging girl.

In his entire life, never before had he sensed _this_ energy—especially from a human being. A young female one, at that.

For a moment, Sensui could not believe it.

This ordinary human Japanese girl, whom one of her aggressors identified as having the name 'Mayonaka Setsuki'…

… emitted the same Spirit Energy—and backup Life Energy—as a certain very highly classified, strictly restricted-access videotape that he himself had… appropriated… from the most tightly secured vaults of the Royal Palace of the Spirit World.

Chapter Black.

In fact, she and the videotape emitted the same _reiki_ —and _inochi-ki_ —at the exact same wavelength as well… a perfect synchrony of biorhythm.

Was _she_ the Mnemonic Mind that created Chapters Black and White from nothing?

An Eternal, one of the three keepers of Time itself?

An Eternal… now mortal… but no, not only that—now _human_ …

… right here in the Human World?

Was she the very Eternal rumored to have escaped from the Spirit World in order to supposedly "mate" with another creature…?

Was this creature from the Human World…?

Soon enough, all the pieces fell—neatly—into place.

And at that moment, Sensui was a man with a plan.

* * *

"Y' okay, man?"

Even round the next corner, both of Rei's comrades still had their hands clapped over his back, soothing him from his pain.

But their ringleader had only one thing in mind.

"Easy for _you_ to say 'we'll get 'em'," he scoffed to his shorter lackey. "But _how_ in the world do we do _that_?"

"Sorry, dude. I got nothin'."

Suddenly, a strange, unfamiliar voice piped up from behind all three of them.

"Perhaps _I_ could be of assistance to you fine young gentlemen."

All three Mushiyori High School boys whirled around and found an impeccably, imposingly tall yet slender figure clad all in black stepping out from the shadows.

* * *

"Is this stationery frilly an' lacy enough?"

"O-Oh, yeah! Here're those heart stickers y' asked me to get'cha!"

"C'mon, man! Pretty up yer handwritin' some more!"

"Damn, we sound _so_ gay right now…"

"Aw, cut the crap an' follow Sensui- _san_ 's orders!"

"Heeey, Love Letter Boy's _not_ gonna buy _that_ …!"

" _Shut up_! Tha' pretty boy gets mushy, sappy shit like this all the time! _Every day_!"

"Yeah, man—he's seriously got all of 'em chicks wrapped around 'is finger. He gets 'em all hot an' bothered jus' _lookin'_ at 'em, too! Kinda makes you wonder why he ended up hookin' up wit' that freaktastic screwball weirdo girl…"

"'Cause he's a 'freaktastic screwball weirdo girl' himself…! Now _keep writin'_!"

* * *

 _Now_ he regretted not having stopped her from enrolling at Meiou for high school.

After all, maybe if he had talked her into staying at Mushiyori, she would have.

Had she only stayed, maybe _this_ year he would have—finally—gotten to sit closer to her in class. Maybe even _next_ to her.

His black book-bag propped upside down over his shoulder, the Mushiyori High School student strode right out of the main building entrance, fast making a beeline for the parking lot. Stupid _Sensei_. Because of that long, boring-ass lecture, he was now half an hour late for their next date—and worse, Meiou was a good seven kilometers away.

Good thing he now had his trusty Yamaha.

But once Hagiri Kaname reached the parking area where he had padlocked his beloved motorcycle, the sight that greeted—no, assaulted—his eyes was his worst nightmare… come to life.

His trusty, slick cobalt blue Yamaha… his precious prize… his pride and joy… dismantled.

In shambles.

Rims flung about in the street… the body of its chassis taken apart… its glass windshield, headlight, front fender, and gearshift nowhere in immediate sight. No. Nowhere to be found.

From a mere glance at (what now remained of) its engine, the motorbike owner could also tell that his trusty two-stroke was also missing its crank case, piston, and several spark plugs that held its entire combustion chamber together.

Kaname winced to himself. His bike will no longer be able to run—at all—without _those_.

And replacing each of those individual parts separately could—and most likely would—very well cost him _even more_ than the original price of the total, totaled bike itself!

Who was the bastard behind this?

Fortunately for him, the perpetrator (was enough of a moron to have actually) left a trace.

Slotted in between the now hideously scratched exhaust pipe and rear shock absorber of his dirt bike was a frilly, lacy carnation pink envelope—lined and lovingly sealed with heart-shaped stickers.

Smoldering lavender eyes narrowed. He was already running late as it was—and now…!

This could _not_ be happening.

* * *

She could not stand still.

Her back and one nervously jiggling foot leaning against the wall of the Meiou Private High School entrance gate, Setsu checked her wristwatch for the sixth time in three minutes.

 _He's running late._

In fact, her Ame- _kun_ was running so late that most of the other students once crowding the halls and gates of her new campus had already abandoned ship by now. Meiou was now completely deserted.

 _We should have picked a meeting-place closer to_ him. A bead of cold sweat trickled down her brow. _We should have—literally—"met each other halfway."_

 _But where should we have agreed to meet instead? Cine Milano—by Mushiyori Plaza?_

 _And what will we end up doing there—watching_ The Crying Game _?_

She sighed to herself in resignation.

 _Oh, well._

 _There's always next time._

Just then, familiar footsteps—pairs of them, around three—stampeded toward her, drawing closer and closer and closer by the split second.

The Meiou High student looked up to find not one, but three boys in Mushiyori High School uniform fast making their way towards her.

But she had absolutely no intention of going on a date with any of them.

* * *

"Oh, y' have _no idea_ how long I've been _waiting_ t' tell ya this, Mayonaka!" gibed the taller one of Rei's trusty sidekicks, even elbowing Setsu in not-so-friendly fun. "Yer 'boyfriend' is _prettier_ than you!"

But the now-fifteen-year-old girl simply closed her eyes and smiled to herself, small, shy dimples even emerging at the tips of her lips.

"I know."

That was _it_? 'I know'? Didn't that fact bother her _at all_?

But that _was_ it. Rei had just about had enough of her troublemaker of a mouth.

"Y' know, I never liked that smart mouth of yers!" The husky, hulky boy closed the gap between his and her feet, standing before her… towering over her.

"That's okay." A cold, couldn't-care-less Setsu merely murmured in response. "It never liked _you_ all that much, either."

"Oh, yeah?!" _Now_ Rei had had enough of it—her troublemaker of a mouth. "How would _you_ like it— _RIPPED OFF YER FACE?!_ "

Just then, the massive thug seized Setsu by her blouse collar, stocky hands all too ready to wring some scrawny neck.

But before he could actually choke her, Setsu sighed.

 _I don't actually want to use my_ ki _against you—after all, it would no doubt upset an otherwise even playing field—but since there's no one else around to see us anyway…_

 _Stand still._

And in an instant, as she intended them to, all three of the bullies harassing her simply froze in time, right where they stood.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, she heard light applause. From just one pair of hands.

 _Huh?_ Blue eyes widened to the unexpected sound. _Someone was actually able to defy my Standstill?_

"That was quite a show…"

And, as if he already knew what she was thinking, an impeccably, imposingly tall yet slender figure clad all in black stepped out from the shadows.

"… Kiyoku."

Mayonaka Setsuki froze—

 _Ku—!_

—a tingling chill and a chilling tingle running through every nerve in her system and every pore on her skin—at the same time the hairs on the back of her head, along her arms, and every other stray strand on her body stood on end. The name electrocuted her. She was fast losing control of her human body, her silent shudders and shivers bordering on epileptic.

Then it dawned on her.

 _No. That's not his voice._

 _My first time to hear him call me…_

 _And it's not even him._

As her sudden, near-violent fit of goose bumps subsided, the strange, mysterious man looming towards her went on.

"Your Royal Highness."

All her stray hairs and every inch of her skin now back to normal, an unnerved Setsu balked at the title, a frown crossing her features. _A little over the top, aren't we?_

 _Now I know how Koenma Daiou_ -sama _feels when I call him 'Koenma Daiou_ -sama _.' It_ can _get awkward._ _Uncomfortable. Weird._

" _Hn_?" The fifteen-year-old human girl merely harrumphed at the man with the blackest hair she had ever lived to see. "Excuse me, but just whom do you think you're _actually_ talking to?"

But Sensui Shinobu went on knowingly.

"You are a member of the Royal Family of the Spirit World." The former Spirit Detective pointed out with a most meaningful smirk. "One who is currently where she shouldn't be, but a member nonetheless."

Setsu's shoulders slumped at that.

 _I don't think of myself as one, though._

 _The way_ I _see it, we Eternals are merely the 'Merlin' to King Enma's 'Arthur.'_

 _And given your manipulative machinations and sinister schemes, Sensui Shinobu, you are just about to prove yourself an even greater traitor than both the 'Lancelot' and 'Mordred' of the Arthurian legend ever were._

"You have cloaked your _reiki_ very well." Sensui went on despite her icy silence. "No _youkai_ come after you."

 _No._ Setsu closed her eyes. _I have grown so weak that no demon even finds me worth hunting down._

Just then, she caught earshot of Sensui's thoughts—which sounded even louder to her mind's ear now that her eyes were closed.

" _I should have done what you are doing when I was younger. Maybe then Koenma would not have discovered me… would not have made me his Spirit Detective…_ "

She pursed her lips into a thin, taut line, refusing to utter a single word.

 _Forgive me for not taking too kindly to you, Sensui Shinobu._

 _I understand that your encounter with the darkest, most sinful face of humanity must have been… well,_ life-changing _… for you, to say the very least._

 _I understand that you felt as though the human race had somehow betrayed you—that you had lived your entire life thinking that demons were "out to get" all humankind and that humans were "merely" their "poor, helpless victims," only to later witness the epitome of the very contradiction of your entire system of beliefs… your entire worldview, as it once was._

 _I understand that the flaw and folly of humanity was hard for you to accept._

 _And forgive._

On either side of her, calloused hands balled up and clenched into tight fists.

 _Still, you are not in the right position—actually, you are in_ no position at all _—to pass such negative judgment unto your fellow human beings._

 _All the more are you in no position to deliver what you believe is "fair and just punishment" upon all of humanity by "opening up the gates of Hell," so to speak._

She almost shook her head to herself—but stopped herself, all too painfully aware that the shrewd, scheming Sensui would be able to read her every move.

 _You are a fragmented man, Sensui Shinobu._

 _I understand how you feel._

 _Yet I don't believe that what you're doing is right._

 _Your conflict is within yourself—so settle it with yourself._

 _You should not involve anyone else—most especially not the innocent._

 _Find a different way to achieve your inner peace._

 _Don't destroy other lives in the process._

At this point, she wanted to sigh—but stopped herself again.

 _In fact,_ that _is the very bone that I've been meaning to pick with Hagiri Kaname himself. For some time now._

 _Though his intentions are good, there have been times when he takes matters into his own hands—and ends up hurting other people, just to achieve his objective… just to get what he wants._

 _He, too, is in no position to "punish" other humans for their misdeeds._

 _Unfortunately and very sadly, falling victim to other people's wrongdoings makes man feel… entitled… to seek revenge—to be vengeful, vindictive._

 _You humans fail to realize that by "punishing" the very ones who do wrong unto you or hurt you,_ you yourselves _become just as bad as the very ones who had hurt you._ You yourselves _are merely continuing the endless, infinite vicious cycle of evil that you yourselves renounce and so despise._

 _What you fail to remember is that_ you—each _and_ every single—last—one—of you—actually _possesses the power to_ stop _this very vicious cycle._

 _Simply by choosing the good._

But even her long, simmering silence spoke volumes of meaning to Sensui.

"You are a long way from home, Your Highness. Why are you here? Wouldn't Koenma—or even Enma Daiou Himself—want you safe and sound back in the Spirit World as soon as possible?"

Setsu remained wordless… motionless.

Yet Sensui chuckled lightly, airily, anyway. "Then again, perhaps not. After all, they don't even seem to have paid the least bit attention to a certain very highly classified, strictly restricted-access videotape that you had oh, so diligently _slaved_ away for centuries just to chronicle and compile into the vile, traumatic nightmare it had now grown to be."

Setsu's eyes narrowed dangerously. He had just indirectly confessed to pilfering Chapter Black!

"Are you always _this_ great a listener?" taunted Sensui, crossing his arms before his hideously scarred chest currently cloaked by his oversized black T-shirt. "He must love that you don't nag his ears off."

At this point, the sarcasm in his malicious, mocking tone was just so thick that Setsu could barely resist cutting it—not to mention him himself—with a knife. She was now giving the facial muscles that enabled her to frown absolutely no time to rest.

 _Why bring Ame_ -kun _up? What do you want with him?_

 _What are you after?_

But Sensui could not hear her questions. In fact, he still had more of his own.

"Was he whom you had come here for?"

Just then, Mayonaka Setsuki froze again, the same tingling chill and chilling tingle from earlier running through every nerve in her system and every pore of her skin, and the hairs on the back of her head, along her arms, and every other stray strand in her body standing on end once more. She hated feeling electrocuted… epileptic.

But not as much as she detested being read so easily like a book.

"Am I confusing you, Kiyoku?" Sensui cocked a curious yet conceited brow. "Ah, but your world-transcending search for your love has become quite the legend with us Spirit World employees."

This was it. She could hold her tongue no more.

" _Former_ Spirit World employees, more like it," corrected the now-mortal, now-human Eternal. "Your employer would not approve of what you're doing at all."

"Speak for yourself," spat an insubordinate, criminally defiant Sensui. "Does your human 'boyfriend' even know that you're only putting up with him while you remain in search of your true love?"

Suddenly, Setsu fell into a deep, unwavering silence once again.

Sensui could not help but laugh at her helplessness. Her Royal Highness Kiyoku—youngest of the three Eternals, who to this day rank and stand as the strongest, most powerful among the Forbidden, the rarest of the Illusion Gods, the most elite and Highest of the Highest Gods in all of the Spirit World—was such a human now. And such a weak one, too. In body _and_ will.

"But your journey," he went on, his tone dripping so heavily of mockery that Setsu summoned up the very limits of her willpower just to resist ridding his oral orifice of his tongue right then and there. "It's been long—and hard. You must be the only creature who has already inhabited all three living worlds—the Spirit World, the Demon World, and now… the Human World."

Upon hearing this, a hollow feeling sank to the pit of Setsu's gut.

"And once I dig a grave on grand enough a scale to bury all of mankind, shall you follow your love to the _Nether_ world? To finally be reunited with him after death?"

Sensui shrugged mischievously, playfully, as if he actually gave a damn about anything he had asked her.

"What will become of your _human_ love, then?"

At this point, Setsu wanted nothing more than to just.

Shut.

Him.

Up!

"Why should I answer you?"

Sensui's brows twitched—only once.

"Ah, but what you just said _is_ an answer in itself, Your Highness. In fact, it is a meaningful one. It tells me all I need to know."

Meanwhile, Setsu's brows simply could not—and would not— _stop_ twitching.

"I see. Until now, you have never met anyone who could threaten to reveal your true identity to him—that _poor_ , _unfortunate_ boy. I'll give you a proposition."

The criminal mastermind now held his hand out to her with a gentle, graceful flourish.

"If you would be so kind," he began with the most offensively, obnoxiously obvious insincerity. "as to lend us your power and cut the periphery field separating the Human World and the Demon World—the very barrier that you and your Eternal brethren had erected and fortified long, long ago—then I can assure you that your little secret remains safe with me."

* * *

Lift page off one stack of papers. Glance at contents. Stamp. Transfer to "To Heaven" pile.

Lift next page off same stack of papers as before. Glance at contents. Stamp. Transfer to "To Hell" pile.

Lift. Glance. Stamp. Transfer.

Stamp. Stack. Stamp. Stack. Stamp. Stack.

 _Stamp—stamp—stamp—stack—stack—stack._

From all his mindless, endless branding of Death Reports alone, Koenma was not surprised to learn that his stamping wrist suffered from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by now.

"'To Heaven'… 'To Heaven'…" The Crown Prince of the Spirit World muttered absently to himself as he stamped his seal on one document after another after another after another, losing himself in the hypnotically repetitive momentum of his entire life's work. "'To Hell'… Oh, _definitely_ a 'To Hell' one…"

Suddenly, a five-horned, maroon-skinned ogre from the Security and Surveillance Division entered his private palace chamber, magically materializing before his hopelessly cluttered, paper-strewn eyesore of an office desk.

"Lord Koenma, Sir…"

" _Hn_?" Beady baby eyes peered up from yet another standard file. The newcomer had caught his attention simply because he was an ogre—an ogre who _wasn't_ his trusty sidekick, Saotome Jorge.

"I beg your pardon for my intrusion, Sir." The muscled monster got down on one knee. "But about the Chapter Black videotape…"

Huh? Chapter Black?

"It's been missing for some time," finished Koenma knowingly. "What about it?"

What was the point in bringing it up? True to his word, it _had_ been missing for quite some time now. Almost a decade or so… ever since Yusuke's direct predecessor Sensui Shinobu suddenly abdicated his post, position, and duties as Spirit Detective…

"Indeed, my Lord. It has come to the attention of Surveillance corps that its presence has recently been detected in the Human World."

 _Now_ Koenma was finally fully distracted from his paperwork. "The _Human_ World?"

"Yes, Lord Koenma. The Intelligence Division has also confirmed our initial suspicion—it has been viewed with significantly increasing frequency over the past two weeks. Perhaps even longer."

"So someone's watching it, huh…?" concluded the prince from this most recent intelligence report. "And most likely getting _others_ to watch it as well… And in the _Human_ World…!"

The ogre from Security and Surveillance hung his head low. "I fear you may be right, Sir."

Little did the ogre know that the prince himself was now fast entertaining another—different—fear of his very own.

Throughout the past decade, Koenma had faithfully, tirelessly been thanking his lucky stars that his father had never once found out that the most tightly secured vault in his private records room had been broken into, and the precious Chapter Black videotape pinched from right under their noses.

And if all that was about to change…

He would be in for some _deep_ trouble.

Now fearing his almighty father's return from his cross-dimensional business trip, Koenma murmured under his breath—so softly that not even his bubblegum blue pacifier would be able to hear it, if it only had ears.

"Kiyoku."

At this point, the momentum that he already had going from all his hypnotically repetitive stamping and stacking earlier… was now lost and gone forever.

"I need you."

* * *

She did not even have to think about it. And she was never going to give it a second thought, either.

 _We erected that barrier for a reason:_

 _To defend all worlds against hell-spawned conspirators like you…!_

"No." Setsu spat shamelessly. " _NEVER_."

Now Sensui was beginning to loathe her bullheaded obstinacy—her renegade resistance—her criminal sense of rebellion.

"Oh." The Dark Angel heaved his heaviest, most deceitfully disappointed sigh. "You must _really_ want to break that _poor_ , _innocent_ human boy's heart, then."

She said nothing, yet the deep scowl that simply would not leave her face told him everything he needed and wanted to know.

If he can't have _her_ powers, then he can always go for _his_.

He _will_ have that sniper boy for himself.

And she will _not_ stop him.

"I have another proposition, then. How about we fake your death, so you can quietly run along back to the Spirit World—where you truly belong—without him ever knowing the truth about you?"

* * *

This was Kaname's very first time riding the bullet train. All the way to Yukimi City.

After all, since his mother had finally given him the big, two-seater motorcycle that he had been restlessly, relentlessly ranting and raving about for the longest time, not once did it enter or cross his mind that he would ever have to.

And now he did… no thanks to that Motomiya Chiyoko—whoever she was.

He couldn't even remember anyone with the name from his shop class.

 _Why_ did this slutty bitch _have_ to pull off this stunt _now_?

Now smoldering more—and more intensely—than ever before, lavender eyes glared at the fancy, frilly carnation pink stationery sheet crumpled in his clenched fist one more time. Even without glossing or going over its contents one more time, the furious, fuming motorcycle owner could still recall every last letter and punctuation mark lovingly looped into the pink page—every last 'i' dotted, every 't' crossed.

" _Hagiri_ -sama—  
 _I totaled your beloved motorcycle because…  
_ … _well, I want a date. If you go on one with me, I'll give you back one of your missing motor parts.  
The more dates we have, the more parts you get back.  
And if you give me a_ really special _date to remember, maybe I'll even think about fixing your bike.  
Hugs and kisses!  
_— _Motomiya Chiyoko (from shop class!)_

 _P.S. I'll be waiting in front of Cine Milano with your piston. See ya~!_ "

A slender hand clad in a fingerless black biker's glove with titanium knuckle guards first tightened its grip on this latest "love" letter, then crushed the delicate, powder-soft piece of paper into a fine, crumbly pulp altogether.

His other hand hanging on to the train handrail for dear life, a Kaname still simmering and stewing in his own wrath and rage darted a glance beyond the glass window panel of the subway coach to check for his current location.

To hell with this slutty bitch and that stupid wild goose chase she wanted to send him on.

Was _the next_ stop the closest one to Meiou this time?

How many more minutes would it take him to get there—on foot?

On the ball of his foot?

 _Running like the wind_ on the ball of his foot?

* * *

"Why should I?" Setsu spat again, even more shamelessly than before. "I am not doing anyone anything wrong. And I especially do not owe _you_ anything."

Just then, the fingers of the very hand that Sensui had extended toward her—in the (highly unlikely) event that she would ever want to shake his hand upon reaching an agreement with him—slowly curled up, nearly but never actually forming a loose fist. Within a split second, a white-hot ball of aura materialized—crystallized—atop his curled, curved palm.

Setsu bit back a gasp. _The rare_ Seikoki.

She never uttered a word, yet Sensui could read all her thoughts like the most elementary of children's storybooks. Surely one of the strongest, most powerful, most elite of the Highest Gods of the Spirit World could identify an orb of Sacred Energy when she laid eyes on one. After all, _Seikoki_ was hailed as an altogether different type of _ki_ , a class all its own, because it was neither _reiki_ —human energy—nor _youki_ —demon energy. No. Sensui Shinobu's Sacred Energy was the _ki_ possessed and wielded by no less than the Highest Gods of the Spirit World!

 _His_ Seikoki _is at par with—no, it could very well even_ rival— _that of the Illusion Gods of the Spirit World. So he could also very well be an illusionist himself: able to change form—to armor himself, for one—if he so pleased._

She narrowed her eyes.

 _This explains why he was able to walk through my Standstill with the greatest of ease._

"Or, if you don't want a 'fake' death, Your Highness…"

Just then, the white-hot ball of aura atop the Dark Angel's curled, curved palm took to the air… gracefully gliding towards the three now-paralyzed boys who had once surrounded and cornered Setsu… and exploded, right before all their eyes.

"… then I would gladly give you a _real_ one."

And as the last particles of Sensui's _Seikoki_ twinkled before their now-recovering eyes, Rei and his two goons slowly regained full consciousness to the sight of Setsu still standing right in the middle of all of them.

They may have been classmates all throughout their grade school and junior high years in Mushiyori, but never had any of the three boys ever seen their resident class weirdo with _this_ look painted on her face.

She looked… shocked. Mortified.

And in their many, many years together, this just might be the very first time that they could ever claim to see her actually… afraid.

 _This tears it._

Setsu swallowed a hard, lumpy gulp back down her throat.

 _I can't believe I'm even thinking of this._

If this Sensui Shinobu was powerful enough to undo her Standstill spell…

 _I need a power boost—bad._

… then he could very well annihilate all of mankind.

Whenever—and however—he wanted.

 _Somebody._

 _Pray to me._

* * *

" _Such a shame._ "

Sensui closed his eyes.

" _You are no longer worthy of the pomp, the prestige, and the power of the Eternal, Kiyoku._ "

A half-smirk snaked across his lips.

" _Your humanity has rendered you weak… powerless. And your_ holding on _to your humanity… your love and longing for the one who trapped you into mortality… shall be your ultimate undoing._ "

* * *

"Kiyoku."

Koenma uttered—muttered—between his lips—

"I need you."

—between and past his bubblegum blue pacifier—

"I need you to either _retrieve_ Chapter Black…"

—secretly, silently hoping that his plea would not fall on deaf ears.

"… or _record_ it all over again."

* * *

 _Somebody._

 _Pray to me._

 _I need your support._

 _Your strength._

They may have been classmates all throughout their grade school and junior high years in Mushiyori, but never had any of the three boys ever seen their resident class weirdo with _this_ look painted on her face.

She looked… shocked. Mortified.

And in their many, many years together, this just might be the very first time they could ever claim to see her actually… afraid.

And for a moment, that look on Mayonaka Setsuki's face stumped all three of them.

"Huh?"

"Wha…"

"What were we doin' again…?"

Suddenly, a now-familiar mocking male voice enlightened the confoundedly confused trio.

"I believe you just inquired how she would like having her mouth ripped off her face."

"Oh, yeah!" _Now_ Rei could pick up just where he once left off: The very point where he had had enough of it—her troublemaker of a mouth. "How would _you_ like it— _RIPPED OFF YER FACE?!_ "

Just then, the massive thug seized Setsu by her blouse collar—a second time—stocky hands all too ready to wring some scrawny neck—a second time.

But before he could actually choke her—a second time—the star of the show, the very boy whose special guest appearance Sensui Shinobu had been waiting for all this time, finally caught up to them… and indeed stole the scene.

" _Let her go, Rei._ "

Without a word, Sensui slipped away from the set undetected.

"NOW."

This horror flick in the making was fast turning into his most recent favorite movie of all time.

* * *

Once the ogre from the Security and Surveillance Division of the Royal Palace of the Spirit World had excused himself out of the prince's office chamber, Koenma summoned for the Eternal once more, this time with all of his strength—

"Kiyoku. Come to me."

—spiritual—

"I need your intervention. Your help."

—and now even vocal.

"I SUMMON YOU TO MY SIDE!"

* * *

" _Let her go, Rei._ "

Kaname heard himself say twice—in his mind _and_ aloud.

"NOW."

But after that, he could no longer believe his eyes or ears.

"All right, man. I'll let 'er go."

And Rei did.

"Besides, _I_ don't hafta get _my own_ hands dirty."

Suddenly, the hefty, hulky boy with one bad, busted eye yanked his black patch right off his face.

Smoldering lavender eyes widened to the sight of that dark, demonic obelisk that was Rei's bad, busted right eye. Did his toy marble from back then do that to him…?

Did _he_ do that to him…?

With a wince, Kaname dared a one-second peek at that gruesome, gory horror movie prop of an eye—not at all knowing that he shouldn't have.

"I know! I'll jus' have _you_ do my dirty work for me!"

He really shouldn't have.

* * *

His back leaning against the same nearby brick wall where he took position and cover before, the Dark Angel pressed his fingers together to form a steeple, a shadow of pure evil eclipsing his face.

Oh, how he wished he had his oh, so comfortable swiveling office armchair to sit on right now.

After all, this cinematic feature presentation was getting more and more exciting by the second.

"Now," Sensui murmured, more to himself than to anyone else, having his fun playing narrator. "Let's see who will be the better psychic between you two."

His smirk spreading more and more behind his steepled fingers, the executive director behind the scenes watched on as Hagiri Kaname suddenly—unwittingly and unwillingly—lost all conscious volition and control over his own body.

"You awakened his dormant Ability when you blinded him, sniper-boy. Now, I can't wait to see just how _he_ will awaken _yours_."

* * *

He still could no longer believe his eyes and ears.

And now, even the rest of his body.

 _Why am I…?_

It was official.

Today was the absolute worst day of Hagiri Kaname's life.

 _Why am I…!_

" _Thaaat_ 's right, pretty boy…!"

"Choke 'er!"

"Strangle 'er good!"

"A…"

"TSUKI!"

"A… me…"

"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?!"

"… _kun_ …"

"TSUKI! _TSUKI!_ "

"A…"

"CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE!"

"I'M _TRYING_ TO LET GO!"

"… me…"

"Come _on_!"

"Don't be shy now!"

"Grip 'er _harder_ , boy!"

"… _kun_ …"

"CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE! CHOKE!"

"I—I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M DOING THIS, TSUKI!"

"YEAAAAAH!"

"YOU HAVE _GOT_ TO BELIEVE ME!"

"WOO HOO!"

"YEAAAH BABY!"

"Don't…"

"THIS IS _FUN_ , REI!"

"YEAAAH! THIS IS THE _SHIT_!"

"HELL YEAH! YER POWER'S SO _COOL_!"

"… mind…"

" _TSUKI! TSUKI!_ "

"… I…"

"DON'T DIE!"

"… won't…"

" _DON'T DIE ON ME!_ "

"… die…"

But after that, she said no more.

* * *

Even from afar, he was able to string her final dying words together.

" _A… me…_ kun… _Don't… mind… I… won't… die…_ "

"Oh, this now-mortal goddess, fallen from grace." Sensui Shinobu shook his head, even clicking his tongue _tsk_ , _tsk_ to himself. "A liar to her very end."

* * *

"Kiyoku."

 _Ko_ …

She could hear him now… clear as crystal.

"Come to me."

 _Koenma… Daiou_ -sama…

"I need your intervention. Your help."

 _You called… just in time…_

"I SUMMON YOU TO MY SIDE!"

 _But my neck's a bit… stiff… at the moment, though._

 _I'm not really one to complain, but I have to be honest with you… I might be in no condition to teleport myself all the way there._

 _Could you please… have someone pick me up…?_

* * *

She no longer moved.

And for three trivial minutes that felt like three torturous millennia, neither did the four boys from Mushiyori High School.

Until Rei wanted to confirm the truth for himself.

"Now put 'er down, pretty boy."

And in spite of himself—completely, utterly, absolutely against his own (un)free will—Hagiri Kaname did as he was told.

His smoky, clouded, hazy lavender eyes could only watch as the two slender hands in fingerless black biker's gloves with titanium knuckle guards… attached to what most convincingly felt like his own wrists… his own arms… his own shoulders… his own body… released her now deeply bruised, pulse-less neck from what was once the most lethal chokehold he had ever performed in his life.

And the now-lifeless shell that was the mortal—human—body of Mayonaka Setsuki collapsed onto the cobblestone ground mere meters away before the Meiou Private High School entrance gates, those unspeakably cold, inhuman blue eyes still fully open, but now completely blank… lost… absent…

Gone.

Forever.

"There!" Relishing and reveling in his sick, self-satisfying victory, Rei clapped a hand over Kaname's back in the rarest display of mock sympathy and mourning. "Now _that_ wasn't so hard, was it, pretty boy? _Now_ y' can go out wit' that hot—an' totally made up!—chick, 'Motomiya Chiyoko from shop class'!"

And he and his two henchmen erupted in the loudest, richest peal of manic, maniacal laughter Hagiri Kaname had ever lived to hear.

"You're _pathetic_ , pretty boy!"

"Yeah! Yer _weak_!"

" _Weak_ as _fuck_!"

"Couldn't even save _yer own girlfriend_! Imagine that!"

"Jus' let 'er die—jus' like that!"

"She died at _yer own hands_ , too!"

"Not only _that_ —she died _because of_ yer own hands!"

"HA! WHAT A LOSER!"

"MURDERER!"

"Y' SHOULD GO TO JUVIE, PRETTY BOY!"

"Or _JAIL_!"

"NAH! EVEN _JAIL_ 'S TOO GOOD FOR 'IM!"

"Y' SHOULD _ROT IN HELL_ , PRETTY BOY!"

"YEAH! YOU AN' YER PRETTY FACE OUGHTA _BURN IN HELL_!"

* * *

As soon as her once-warm, once-rosy cheek grazed the dusty, dirty cobblestone, the fifteen-year-old human Japanese girl once known as Mayonaka Setsuki—the only child of Mayonaka Tsuzuku and the late Mayonaka (née Hatanaka) Kiseki, niece of Hatanaka Kazuyu, first cousin of Hatanaka Shuuichi, and best friend of Akasaki Minaku—suddenly vanished from their vision altogether.

"Koenma."

His back still leaning against the same nearby brick wall as before, his fingers still pressed together to form a steeple, Sensui Shinobu's smirk could not grow any wider than it already was.

"You always _did_ have impeccable timing."

Now the imposingly, impossibly tall, willowy yet wiry man pushed his back away from the brick wall.

"One down—one to go."

His icy, glacial blue eyes rested their gaze upon the still-shell-shocked, still-silent star of the show.

"Now, it's _your_ turn, Hagiri. Show me what you can do… for me."

* * *

"Don't come cryin' to _us_ now, ya weak weak-ass weakling!"

"Ya pussy!"

"Sonnuva bitch!"

"Don't wanna go t' prison? Go jump off a cliff an' kill yerself!"

"Yeah! Join yer girl in the afterlife!"

But until now, Kaname could still not believe his eyes and ears.

 _You went away, Tsuki._

 _You left me._

 _Some troublemaking nuisance had messed with my bike, then even had the gall to leave a note._

 _If I wanted the perp to fix what_ she _had done, I had to meet her at a certain place and time._

 _Her terms._

 _She called the shots._

 _I thought the perp was just some slutty attention-seeker who wanted to waste my time, as usual._

 _But I was wrong._

 _That stupid Rei and his guys were behind it all along._

 _Apparently, they were just buying time…_

 _Time to gang up on you._

 _Without me around._

* * *

This was _not_ how she pictured her own time to go.

Oh, well.

At least she could float and fly again.

Without having to exert any of her _ki_ , too.

"What's _this_?" groaned the Grim Reaper floating—just as freely as she was—on a flying wooden rowboat paddling oar tilted horizontally. "You don't have a Life Report!"

Just like Setsu, the light blue-haired _shinigami_ before her eyes seemed to have unmet expectations as well. One thing was for sure: Botan was having technical difficulties.

"Let's see, now…"

So Setsu had to stand by.

"I have here a 'Mayonaka Kiseki'…" Wide, cat-like lilac eyes read from the notebook peeking out of an oversized carnation pink kimono sleeve. "And a 'Mayonaka Shuuichi'…"

 _Botan_ -sama _, that 'Mayonaka Kiseki' whose file you just read is the very human woman who had given birth to me._ Setsu told her only in the confidential confines of her own mind.

 _And as for her biological son…_

She never finished that thought.

"But I don't see a 'Mayonaka Setsuki' anywhere in here!"

A sheepish, shamefaced Setsu rubbed her hand against the back of her head in rueful apology. " _Mengo_. I haven't quite gotten around to writing it."

 _I never actually thought I'd have to write it so soon, you see._

 _I really_ did _believe my human form would live past fifteen._

The light-hearted yet airheaded ferry-girl failed to pick right up on the hidden implication behind the ghost girl's admission of guilt.

"You know, you're just like another human I fetched recently—the Spirit World didn't know what to do with _him_ , either!"

Yet Setsu was actually glad that she did not catch on.

 _Urameshi Yusuke._

"But I have my orders…!" A determined Botan resolved her dilemma on her own, even pumping a fist right out of her oversized kimono sleeve and into the air. "I'll just take you to Koenma- _sama_ , like I did with him!" Just then, she patted the very end of her oar, motioning for her latest companion to occupy what remained of its paddle behind her. "HOP ON!"

But Setsu refused to. Not just yet. "Uh, I hope you don't mind, but…"

"Hm?" Botan's wondrously wide, cat-like lilac orbs blinked in curiosity. "What's the matter?"

"We're taking _that_ , _ne_?" Setsu pointed to her fetcher's trusty means of transportation. "Uh… Since it's not every day that I get the chance to ride a flying boat oar… I mean, this _is_ a once in a lifetime opportunity—or rather, a once in a _death_ -time one…"

"Y-Yes…?"

At this point, the sweat-dropping Botan wasn't sure what her latest charge was driving at. She was sure of only one thing: The girl was weird with a capital W.

"… Could you let _me_ steer it sometime—somewhere along our way?" Just then, the lightly chuckling ghost knuckled her own temple at her own silliness. "If it's okay with you…?"

* * *

"Hey, wait a sec…!"

"Where did she go?"

"I must've _evaporated_ 'er wit' my power!"

" _SWEET_!"

"Yeah! _That_ 's it! I _wanted_ 'er to go away, so she did!"

"That's jus' _beyond awesome_ , Rei! Even _the dead_ do whatever the hell y' want 'em to!"

"Enough."

Hagiri Kaname had already had it up to here with them and their voices.

 _I thought you were still gonna come back_ , he told his Tsuki—even if only in his mind.

 _I thought you would be back in the nick of time._

 _Not that I needed you to save me or something._

 _I didn't_ need _you_.

 _I was just… I dunno… expecting you to show up from out of nowhere like you used to, get yourself into trouble again, and then I'd come to your rescue—whether you wanted me to or not._

 _I don't know._

 _I just…_ wanted… _you to be there, I guess._

 _I didn't see the point in fighting them off if it was just me against them._

"Shut up. Just. _SHUT_. _UP_."

* * *

"Koeeenma- _samaaa_!" chimed the ever-cheery, ever-bubbly Botan upon entering the office of the Crown Prince of the Spirit World. "I have another one for yo—"

"Ah. It's you."

Suddenly, the blue-skinned Spirit World ogre, the blue-haired Spirit World reaper, and the blue-eyed Spirit World deity-turned-human-turned-ghost in the room all blinked in unison.

Why was Koenma in his handsome adolescent form?

"I've been expecting you," stated the royal in a business-like, matter-of-fact tone. He then turned to his two aides. "Jorge. Botan. You may go."

"But Koenma- _sama_ ," Botan protested to the prince, as usual. "Shouldn't I introduce her first—"

"She can very well do that herself," countered Koenma, noticeably more sober and serious than usual. "Go. _Now_."

Sensing the sudden somberness in the typically frivolous imperial's demeanor, both Saotome Jorge and Botan stepped away from Koenma's desk, retreating to the back of the room without a word—their mouths were simply too busy gulping hard, stony lumps back down their respective throats.

As the two subordinates exited the room, the blue-eyed brunette girl in their midst bowed her head in their direction, bending her waist at a perfect ninety-degree angle in reverent respect.

"Thank you for fetching me, Botan- _sama_ ," bade Mayonaka Setsuki in her fifteen-year-old human form, a smile curling up her lips and dimples shyly emerging at their tips. "Thanks to you, I could not have asked for a more _fun_ way to meet my maker." Chuckling from the memory of their short, short-lived time together, she then turned to Koenma's right-hand ogre. "And hello there. Would you kindly excuse us for a while, Saotome- _san_?"

A nervous, uneasy laugh escaping both their lips, both the blue-haired and the blue-skinned nonhumans could only nod at the… unusual… newcomer and stammer to her face. "O… Okay…"

And then the two flustered spirits shut Koenma's office doors behind them.

As soon as they had taken their leave, the Crown Prince of the Spirit World rose from his throne-like office chair, stepped out from behind his work desk, and crossed the marble palace hall, bridging what distance they had between them.

"Kiyoku…"

Just then, something in the monarch's tone struck a chord with Setsu.

"Koenma Daiou- _sama_ …" she murmured in return.

 _Just how… long… have you been waiting to call me that…?_

 _To talk to me this way…?_

Now merely inches away from her, Koenma had to take one step back just to drink in the sight of her. A fifteen-year-old brunette with glassy, glacial blue eyes…

Koenma could not fathom it. She looked so human now.

"You needed not pay your respects to them, Kiyoku. If they only knew who you truly are, _they_ should have paid _their_ due respects to _y_ —"

Setsu shook her head at his remark, refusing to let him finish.

"No, it's all right. They really don't have to. And _you_ needed not go through the trouble of morphing into _this_ form either, Koenma Daiou- _sama_. Not for my sake, anyway."

"Yeah, I know. I've just always wondered what it would be like to actually… _touch_ … you," admitted Koenma sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders under his royal red robe. "I figured this could be the only time I'll get to hold you in my arms, you know…"

Setsu raised a loosely curled fist to level with her lips. She just _had_ to smile at the prince's warm, affectionate welcome. Despite just how… creepy… it came across at first impression.

 _Thank you, Koenma Daiou_ -sama. _Thanks to you, I feel like I'm home._

"I…" The grown man with the heart of a bouncing baby boy found himself struggling to express his longtime sentiments. "I've always wanted to give you a hug, but you've always been in your ghost form since we met…"

"Well," Setsu responded in kind—and in just as awkward a manner. There always was at least one tongue-tied occasion in every family reunion. "Not anymore, _ne_?"

The very moment she raised both her arms to the prince, Koenma closed the gap between their feet and swallowed her entire being in his own arms.

"Still," Setsu chuckled, distancing her own face from his. "I could have just picked you up in all your baby glory or something. You would have been much lighter."

Koenma shook his head in absolute, adamant refusal. "I figured you'd be wounded. After all, every time I see you, you're always covered in bruises and blood."

He let her go slowly… sadly.

"Why do you let them hurt you, Kiyoku…?" Koenma's reedy adult voice trailed off, dripping heavily of unspoken, unspeakable sorrow. "It's just not right…"

This time, it was Setsu who shook her head in absolute, adamant refusal. Her dimpled smile never once left her lips.

 _All is still well, Koenma Daiou_ -sama.

 _Because I also have someone on my side._

 _In fact, I'm looking at one right now._

" _Mengo_. I never realized how much I make you worry."

Only now did Koenma chuckle.

"You really _don't_ say ' _Gomen nasai_ ' anymore, don't you? Since that time…"

Setsu chuckled with him. He understood her better now.

"Two… No. _Three_ hundred years… That was no joke, Kiyoku. Not funny at all."

Setsu's dimpled smile grew even wider. Koenma was growing up.

"But how did you recognize me—" She suddenly asked, effectively changing their topic of conversation in that random, haphazard manner she often did. "—even with _this_ face?"

But Koenma knew her by now. "Your smile," he answered with neither thought nor hesitation. "No matter what or whose face you wear, you still smile the same way."

 _I'm glad that_ you _remember me, at least._

 _Especially since I can't even say the same for…_

Setsu closed her eyes, pushing—purging—all her myriad thoughts of a certain someone away from her conscious mind.

Just then, another human teenager named Shuuichi emerged from its depths and amused her.

They may both be spoiled brats for boys.

But even if her only first cousin from the Spirit World was a royal—in fact, the sole heir to the throne, no less—sometimes he still treated her better than her only first cousin from the Human World did.

* * *

"WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME DO?"

Never in Hagiri Kaname's entire life had he—ever—heard himself this loud.

This… mad.

Mad-incensed.

Mad-insane.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST MAKE ME DO?"

Until now, he still could not believe his eyes and ears. At all.

As if it were humanly possible, Rei and his two bootlickers erupted in an even louder, richer peal of manic, maniacal laughter than before.

After that, he could no longer hear them—or anything that passed their lips—at all. His ears blocked out everything.

Every damn, fucking thing.

"YOU'RE NOT HUMAN. NO. YOU'RE _SCUM_."

 _I thought you would fight my every battle with me, Tsuki._

 _But again, I was wrong._

Now all he could hear was the sound of his own voice.

Loud. Mad. Mad-incensed. Mad-insane.

"AND SCUM LIKE YOU DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE."

 _Once you were gone, they ganged up on me next._

 _They beat me up, real bad._

 _I was going to die._

"YOU'RE NOT GETTING RID OF _ME_ THAT EASY."

 _They tossed me into some dumpster in some alley._

 _None of my punches and kicks and thrashes was working._

 _Next thing I knew, I'd resorted to throwing stuff at them._

 _(I was getting pretty near pathetic, actually. They noticed.)_

"DROP DEAD."

 _I threw a lot of stuff._

 _Trash from the dumpster, tin cans, rocks._

 _I even found the spare parts missing from my bike. They chucked them all there. They'd been there all along._

 _But even they were no use._

 _I wished they were all harder—even harder than steel—so I'd at least have a fighting chance._

"DIE."

 _And whaddya know?_

"DIE!"

 _They got harder._

* * *

" _That_ 's it…!"

The Kazuya persona of Sensui Shinobu was thoroughly enjoying himself by now.

"Show me all you've got, you two!"

From the silky, sensuous lilt in his now husky, honeyed voice, anyone eavesdropping on him—or even anyone who just so happened to be within earshot of him—could, and would, have very well believed that he may have been fully unclothed—and deriving a most… sinful… pleasure from the action-packed cinematic thriller that the latest turn of events in his midst had fast (d)evolved into.

"Whoever between you two emerges the victor, I shall take for myself!"

* * *

 _In fact, they got harder._

 _And harder._

 _And harder._

 _Just the way I wanted them to be._

 _It was amazing, Tsuki._

 _The harder I wanted them to be, the harder they actually got._

 _Soon enough, those morons were getting more and more injured than I expected._

 _I drilled a hole into that short idiot's gut with just a dirty broken light bulb._

 _They began running away._

"DIE!"

 _But I wasn't going to let them._

"DIE, ALL OF YOU— _DIE_!"

 _Next-next thing I knew, everything I picked up automatically flew right toward them and hit them everywhere._

 _Their heads, their faces, their ankles, their hearts._

 _Everything I touched hit them everywhere I wanted them to get hit._

 _Everywhere I wanted to hit them._

 _Yeah._

 _I_ wanted _to hit them, Tsuki. Hit them_ hard.

 _You probably wouldn't have liked that._

 _But it was exciting, Tsuki._

 _You've never seen me that tough before._

 _I could take on anyone._

 _I was unstoppable!_

 _Knowing you, though, you wouldn't have been happy._

 _You wouldn't have been proud of me._

 _You would have hated me._

 _Maybe even feared me._

 _Hah. Probably not._

 _Since when have you ever feared anyone, anyway?_

"YOU ALL REALLY DESERVE A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH, BUT I'M FEELING GENEROUS TODAY. DEATH WILL DO JUST FINE… FOR NOW."

 _Every last thing I touched turned to lead or something._

 _Something stronger._

 _They still looked the same._

 _An old shoe was still an old shoe._

 _But I could stab someone with it now._

 _It was my weapon now._

Everything _was my weapon now._

"IF IT WAS _THAT_ EASY FOR YOU TO GET 'ME' TO KILL _HER_ , THEN I'M GONNA HAVE A _HELLUVA BLAST_ FINISHING _ALL OF YOU_ OFF!"

 _I knew what I was doing, Tsuki._

 _I just didn't know how I was doing it._

 _But frankly, I didn't even care._

"TAKE _THAT_ , YOU SCUM! YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!"

 _And just when I snuffed out the last of 'em, that was when I met Sensui_ -san.

* * *

Any predator worth his salt knew all too well that the absolute _perfect_ time to pounce upon his prey was at its weakest… its most vulnerable.

And the predator in Sensui could no longer restrain himself—he wanted to pounce. Hard.

He wanted to strike.

To sink his teeth right into his prey's moist, tender flesh.

Now.

After all, what better time to pounce upon his weak, vulnerable prey than now—

—the lowest, most painful moment of his life?

—when he carried what could very well be the heaviest cross—the heaviest sense of loss—that he had ever lived to bear?

But no.

Before anyone else, the boy would meet Minoru. His cool, calm, collected face. Reserved and relaxed on the outside, but full of thunder within.

And for the very last time that day, Sensui Shinobu stepped out from the shadows…

… just as a broken, exhausted, devastated, miserably mourning Hagiri Kaname collapsed onto the dusty, dirty cobblestone ground on his knees, the skin of which instantly chafed and scratched against the rocky rough of the cobble.

For a long, listless, nigh-lifeless while, Sensui shared Hagiri's broken, exhausted, devastated, miserably mourning silence.

Not yet taking any notice of the man now standing by his side, the teenage boy to whom Fate had just dealt a most unfortunate hand—a hard, crushing blow, right to his heart—bent over and curled in a cocoon-like, almost fetal, position, pressing his forehead against the jagged cobblestone before his knees, also scraping the skin beneath his long raven forelocks in the process.

As if losing his motorcycle wasn't bad enough.

Today was, without a single doubt in his universe, his very first day in Hell. Hell on Earth.

 _How_ could he have taken—ended—her life?

 _How_ could she have died—and at his very own hands, at that?

 _How_ could he have been too utterly _helpless_ — _powerless_ —

— _WEAK—_

—to stop it from happening?

But Sensui knew his pain.

Just like his (late) girlfriend, this human boy named Hagiri Kaname was just as easy an open book to read.

The question now was: Would this… life-changing… day _actually_ change the boy?

For the worst?

To the point that he would—willingly—feed all of humanity to demonkind from this day forth?

Time to find out.

"She was a strong girl."

Now-fireless lavender eyes finally caught sight of a black leather shoe brushing up against his (wounded) right knee. They looked up to behold an imposingly, impossibly tall man, dressed all in black with slicked-back hair towering right over him… casting a long shadow over his entire kneeling form.

Whoever this newcomer was, he blocked Kaname's entire view of the sun.

Just then, the boy slowly looked up… up… up… right into the tall man's face. What was this… initial, yet immediate… instinctive… emotional pull?

Hagiri did not understand this… gravitational force… drawing him to the man straight away.

He was sure of only one thing.

The man's eyes were glacial… the iciest of blue.

Just like Tsuki's.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Sensui clicked his tongue thrice in a most convincing sham of sympathy. "Such a pity. A waste of a life."

For Hagiri Kaname, it wasn't just _any_ life. But he was tired… drained… completely spent… by now. At this point, he could barely even _begin_ to explain himself.

"Yet trust me… This is but a mere drop in the bucket of havoc and pure evil that humans can wreak upon other humans. In truth, they are capable—infinitely capable—of so much more destruction."

But Kaname remained too tired… drained… spent… to keep up any semblance of conversation at all. So he let the man continue without a word in edgewise.

"Do you not see it all around you? There is needless war because one group of humans wishes to dominate another. There is torture. Rape. Murder. A ceaseless parade of blood and brutality. Surely you are sick of such ordeals."

Fortunately, the stranger appreciated his silence anyway. Or the guy just simply _loved_ to hear himself talk.

"You are embittered—resentful—with the human condition, yet you feel helpless to change it—by yourself. Am I right?"

Only now did Kaname manage to respond. With a light, yet heavy-hearted, sigh.

Sensui took his sigh as an affirmative.

"But there _is_ something you can do. And I would love to show you how."

The man then extended his hand in greeting—the very hand that the boy's late girlfriend had once refused to even just graze against her own.

"Sensui Shinobu."

 **Continued  
** in **Chapter Three:  
** _ **Descending into the Darkness**_ **  
**  
Just in case you were wondering…

The name of Mayonaka Setsuki's otherworldly alter ego, _Kiyoku_ , is actually the Japanese word _kioku_ , translated to English as _memory_.

So yeah.

She doesn't _have_ memories—she _is_ Memory.

To find out how Kaname eventually comes to be known as the Sniper, then **Chapter Three:** _ **Descending into the Darkness**_ already awaits you.


	3. Descending into the Darkness

**A/N  
** Just as in the previous chapter, please beware of somewhat… colorful… language in this one. Still nothing too out of the ordinary for YYH, though.

You may have already noticed by now that I never jump-start a new chapter until I bid you:

 **Happy reading~! \\(^o^)/**

* * *

 _He was there to see it, Tsuki._

 _Me, basking in my super-powered glory._

Hagiri Kaname still spoke to her—even if she was nowhere near him now.

 _And he liked what he saw._ _Said so himself._

And indeed, Sensui Shinobu _was_ truly pleased with what he saw. Kaname had a natural hatred of other human beings. The boy who had so much potential to be a mass murderer now had blood on his hands, too. It was easier to win him over to his side now.

 _He was proud of me for standing up for myself._

 _I told him I've gotten used to spending my days with someone like you, who'd sooner beg to disagree._

 _He asked me what the hell I ever saw in you._

 _Excuse him, Tsuki. He didn't know we were talking about you._

 _He began a whole tirade on humanity in general._

Now Sensui motioned to the three unconscious boys crumpled and huddled in a lifeless heap on the dusty, dirty cobblestone ground by their feet.

 _And I will forever remember his words:_

"They can gather as many of them as they want. Group together as much as they want. But it will all be pointless. They will all go down. Because in the end, it's every man for himself. This is what's wrong with all humanity. We humans really only care about our own selves—no one else. We have no sense of loyalty. Our loyalties are only to ourselves. There is no trust. Only selfishness—the pure evil of the human soul. And for that, all of humanity must pay the price for their sins—with their lives."

 **Chapter Three  
** _ **Descending into the Darkness**_

"I see."

Koenma could only nod at the now-mortal, now-human Eternal whom he could no longer (literally) see. After all, no Eternal had ever been visible from within the hollow of their hallowed cryogenic facility-like preservation pod.

" _That_ means the tunnel must be between its second and third stages of completion by now," he concluded with a grim, almost grieving, tone. "First the _Makaichu_ insects infesting the Human World… And now humans—suddenly growing _this_ powerful. In fact, I myself still can't believe a mere boy could actually pose such a huge threat to your life—"

Suddenly, the prince overheard a sheepish chuckle from within Kiyoku's containment chamber. " _Just goes to show how weak I am now, I guess._ "

"And that other boy… the one he controlled…"

Although Kiyoku remained silent, Koenma could already tell what she wanted to ask him: _What about him?_

"Was he not the one you seek?"

Again, Kiyoku merely remained silent.

"Kiyoku," Koenma cooed in a reassuring tone. "You can tell me. I give you my word that anything and everything I think of or say will _never_ reach my Father's ears—"

The deity who had disappeared into the darkness finally spoke up once more.

" _Don't get me wrong, Koenma Daiou_ -sama. _I_ do _trust_ you. _However, your thoughts and words_ will _reach someone_ else _'s._ "

This time, Koenma fell silent.

" _A risk that I am_ not—never— _willing to take._ "

The prince heaved a long, heavy sigh.

"But he keeps you alive, Kiyoku. Why are you keeping your distance from him? Don't you want to _be_ with him? Wasn't he whom you had gone all the way to the Human World for?"

Suddenly, a bright idea struck him—a light bulb suddenly lit up over his head.

"You know, Kiyoku, if this Summoner of yours has some criminal record or two here in the Spirit World, I could help you find him real easily—"

" _Thanks, but no, thanks, Koenma Daiou_ -sama."

If only Koenma could actually see her at that moment, he would immediately notice her closing her eyes… with the strangest, most secret smile playing upon her lips.

" _This is all for the best. I would rather be safe than sorry._ "

And if only he could actually see her at that moment, he would then notice her biting her lower lip before going on.

" _After all, his is not the only life of value to me now. I now have a father. And a true friend. And even, as you yourself called him, 'that other boy'._ "

Koenma found himself at a loss for words. "Kiyoku…"

" _What can we do, Koenma Daiou_ -sama _?_ " The resident record-keeper and chronicler of all of history suddenly raised. " _At_ this _rate, he's going to help that Sensui Shinobu wipe out the Human World—and_ him himself _with it!_ "

But the prince was still caught at a loss. "Sensui…"

Kiyoku nodded at him—even if she was beyond his range of vision. " _He has been recruiting humans to side with him and his so-called 'cause.' Psychic sidekicks to call his very own._ "

Now the royal found his voice again.

"Envoys of the Demon World… who are, in the strangest, most ironic twist of fate, from the _Human_ World…"

Just then, the imperial tossed his royal red scarf over and behind his shoulder, tightening his resolve.

"Sensui's snapped. He has taken over Sakyo's plan."

* * *

Even after already having delivered quite a mouthful, the Minoru in Sensui was still nowhere near done.

"Everyone is looking out only for themselves."

 _Including your so-called "girlfriend," who chose to retreat to the Spirit World and leave you alone—here, with me—instead of contributing her Ability to my cause._

And without Hagiri noticing, a sinisterly shadowed, vengeful frown crossed the Dark Angel's features.

 _So selfish of her._

* * *

" _What kind of unforgivably flawed, warped logic is that?_ " spat an even-toned yet nonetheless offended—possibly even outraged—Kiyoku.

From right outside her preservation pod, Koenma could only sweatdrop at her sudden exclamation.

" _I got away from you to_ prevent _you from destroying the Human World!_

" _I don't believe this! You contort and twist reality so well—that you are able to brainwash people, Sensui Shinobu!_

" _Even yourself!_ "

Despite being invisible and intangible at the time, the invisible, intangible deity turned to face Koenma anyway.

" _I am_ trying _my best to understand him, Koenma Daiou_ -sama. _But I just can't delve too deeply into his psyche…_ really _get under his skin, if you know what I mean._ "

This was it. Kiyoku was now officially in the mood to rant away.

" _I mean, it just escapes me how a once morally upright, even upstanding, human being—virtuous to a fault—could eventually end up so… traumatized… broken… to the point that he suddenly ups and goes genocidal on all humanity—a complete one-eighty from_ everything _he once believed in._ "

"Shinobu."

And now Koenma, too, joined her in her rant-off.

"I noticed something about him from the very beginning… even before the time I assigned him the title and task of Spirit Detective. He had always been quite the perfectionist, Kiyoku. He likes things nice and neat—black and white—so much so, in fact, that when the 'gray' area of morality reared its ugly head, he didn't take it well. No, that was an understatement. He completely freaked out and broke down. He couldn't cope or adapt—for him, 'gray' cannot exist; there was only 'black' and 'white.' So he turned the tables—on himself, and on humanity altogether. Just because he couldn't live in a world where the in-between was possible.

"Ultimately, it was his severely limited 'black and white' view on morality and his unattainable dream of perfect justice that drove him to the edge."

" _To his madness._ " Kiyoku finished for him.

"And somehow…"

Just then, the prince hung his head low in a self-effacing, silent sorrow.

"… _I_ drove him to his madness."

Kiyoku shook her invisible, intangible head.

" _I don't agree, K_ _oenma Daiou_ -sama. _You and your role in his life could have only contributed so much. In the end, the way that he lives his life is of_ his own _choosing—not yours, and not anyone else's._

" _I believe that it was his impossible quest for what you yourself called his 'perfect justice' that crippled him to this devastating a state of mind and heart. His unrealistic desire for Perfection._

" _He just couldn't accept that he was human. A human being. An_ im _perfect being._ "

There was simply no stopping Kiyoku once she entered Mad Mouth-Motor mode.

" _He kept on chasing after Perfection, only to find it more elusive than any human being can handle. Just as we run after it… just as we mistakenly feel that we have already caught up to it… it escapes us again, simply because it is also running—and at a much, much faster pace than ours was, is, and will ever be._

" _And in our pursuit of this damned elusive Perfection, we stumble… we fall. And throughout the course of our rough, rocky journey, we come to forget that the whole point of Life is to get up… to keep getting up… each time we stumble… each time we fall. Our concept of Success itself doesn't actually equate to never stumbling or falling at all. True Success simply means that we manage to get up even just_ one more time _than we fall. And to achieve this, we strive. We_ hope.

" _Among all my years here in the Spirit World, and then in the Demon World, and now fifteen in the Human World,_ that _'s what I have noticed sets humans apart from both spirits and demons._

" _We are capable of so much hope. Our sense of Hope seems endless… infinite._ "

Koenma noticed it then—Kiyoku's constant, consistent "we." She considered herself one of them now.

A human. A human being. An _im_ perfect being.

" _We hope for the best,_ " Kiyoku went on. " _We hope for the future—whether the far-off, faraway future, or even just tomorrow. We hope for good things—for ourselves, for others. We never stop hoping—in spite of, and in the face of, all odds._

" _We struggle. We chase after our dreams. We just never. Stop. Hoping._

" _That's the_ beauty _of being human, actually. We're not perfect. So we strive… we hope. Had we been created or born perfect since the very beginning, our lives would actually be meaningless—there would be nothing for us to strive for… to hope for._ "

Only then did it dawn upon Koenma.

Despite their mutual tendency to turn into total chatterboxes when passionate or provoked, Kiyoku could very well be the antithesis of Sensui.

She _wasn't_ human from the very beginning. She _hadn't_ been created or born to exist in the Human World. And yet she saw, recognized, and acknowledged the beauty in and of humanity… and even appreciated it, for all it was worth. She had come to love all of humanity—or even just one of them—her Summoner, perhaps—in fact, so much so that she chooses to _remain_ human, even when she could very well choose otherwise.

But what about…

What about Kurama?

 _He_ wasn't human from the very beginning, either. He, too, _hadn't_ been created or born to exist in the Human World.

So why did—and does—he choose to _remain_ human, even when he could very well choose otherwise?

Was it because he, too, saw, recognized, and acknowledged the beauty in and of humanity…? And even appreciated it, for all it was worth?

Was it because he, too, had come to love all of humanity—or even just one of them?

The woman who had given birth to his human form, perhaps?

" _Alas, Sensui Shinobu no longer saw himself as 'human' the very moment he witnessed the monstrosity of humanity with his own two eyes._ "

As Koenma listened to her further, he wondered about them—Kurama and Kiyoku.

Did either of them have _any_ idea just how… similar… they were?

Have they ever met?

Maybe they should.

" _But_ I _no longer saw Sensui as 'human' the very moment that he gave up on all of humanity… the very moment he ran out of Hope._ "

* * *

How could someone with Tsuki's breathtaking blue eyes look so… different… from her?

Sure, this Sensui guy's eyes looked just as… inhuman… as hers. They sent the same icy chills down the boy's spine.

And yet… _his_ were simply so much… darker. More sinister.

To Kaname, this Sensui Shinobu's face caricatured every known evil in the world.

"But _I_ am on your side."

This caught the boy's attention.

"I have seen you, and I have seen enough to give you my word that you are _strong_."

But those words of his…

"… _you are_ strong."

They flowed like sweet, sweet music to his ears.

"You're not a weakling like they said. You are strong—much, much stronger than you know. I just saw how strong you are. And I also know how much stronger you can be."

At this point, Hagiri Kaname had already lost count of just how many times—on this tragic, wretched day alone—he could not believe his own ears. Was Sensui… singing?

"Come with me. I'll show you just how much stronger you can be."

Huh?

A gruff harrumph suddenly escaped Kaname's lips.

Come with _him_?

Why should he follow this stranger? He had zero idea whether this guy was all talk—all bark but no bite.

After all, he didn't believe in being a follower—a peon—a crony. Of anyone.

Since time immemorial, Hagiri Kaname held little to no respect for suck-ups. They disgusted him. Since they were never the masterminds themselves, they could eventually feign innocence and claim no willful involvement in any incident that backfires on them. To him, they deserved to be condemned even more than their leaders—for at least the brains of the outfit actually had "brains" to speak of, while they merely played the role of puppets, mindlessly fulfilling their bosses' every whimper and whim.

Who _was_ this Sensui guy, anyway? And why should he do as he says?

Just then, the then-knocked out—but apparently still alive and breathing—Rei came to, awakening from his once-insentient coma. Kaname had just spotted the faintest stir from the corner of his eye when the one-eyed teenager hastily scampered to his feet and made a break for it—far, far away from their crime scene.

This was his chance.

To prove himself to the headstrong boy, Sensui instantly produced a tiny "bullet" of power with his Sacred Energy, pinched the bullet-shaped orb between his pointer finger and thumb, and flicked it—right at Rei's forehead.

Bulls' eye.

From the sheer impact of the shot, the burly, bulky bully of Mushiyori High School collapsed onto the cobbled ground one last time.

He never got up again.

Too bad. _That_ kid had potential, too.

But Sensui had neither use nor need for losers. Even if they were psychic.

"I can show you how you can do _this_ , too. And with any object you want. With the proper training."

Sensui saw this as a golden opportunity to coerce Hagiri into his belief system. After all, humans were just so easily given to persuasion… if one knew the right buttons to push.

And in the case of this boy…

It was his easily inflatable—and "deflatable"—ego.

"I give you my word: After your training, you would be able to protect your _next_ girlfriend."

Suddenly, once-fireless lavender eyes rekindled… smoldered… all over again. A silent Kaname seethed between gritted jaws and gnashed teeth.

He'll avenge Tsuki.

He'll show this Sensui guy.

He'll show the whole world.

He'll get stronger.

Stronger than he was today.

* * *

But enough psychoanalysis and armchair philosophy. Time to get right down to business.

" _Koenma Daiou_ -sama." From within the hollow, hallowed confines of her containment facility, Kiyoku beckoned for the imperial's attention. " _Sensui is looking for a dimension cutter. Someone with enough power to destroy our force field from long ago. In fact, he was even eyeing_ me."

"WHAT?" The bubblegum blue pacifier in between the baby's lips threatened to fall right off his mouth. "How _dare_ he ask a Spirit World deity to do his dirty work! And no less than one of the very three gods who created that periphery field in the first place! He's gone insane, all right—no doubt about it!"

" _But he will not necessarily need one of_ us _per se, Koenma Daiou_ -sama. _For his cause, even a mortal dimension cutter will do._ " Kiyoku pointed out matter-of-factly. " _In fact, he already has_ two _minions with dimensional Abilities working under him._ "

"His longtime partner, Itsuki," surmised Koenma.

The invisible, intangible divinity nodded in affirmation. " _Yes. And another one—a human. He can create new spatial dimensions of his very own by mixing his own blood with Human World water._ "

At that latest intelligence report, the prince could only shake his head. "He's crazy prepared, that Sensui."

" _Really? He's just 'crazy' to me._ "

Suddenly, the two Spirit World royals erupted into a reluctant yet united collective laugh. Neither of them sounded like gods at all.

But Kiyoku was all too aware of the gravity and severity of the situation. Before long, her tone grew sober and serious once more. " _But what if Sensui_ does _find a dimension cutter? Right there in the Human World?_ " The brain in the enchanted vat asked, her tone ominous… foreboding. " _After all, if a dimension_ creator _actually walks among them… then so can a cutter._ "

"His or her power could simply be dormant—latent—at the moment. You're right—that _would_ spell biiiiig trouble."

This time, Koenma very nearly gulped his own bubblegum blue pacifier down his throat. Cold sweat beaded all across his forehead, right beside his 'Jr' tattoo.

"Just stay here in the Spirit World for the meantime, Kiyoku," he ordered his fellow spirit in the tank. "Don't let him get to you. Don't let him mess with your mind. I don't want to risk losing you to him. He might have a psychic who can duplicate—or worse, usurp—your powers, and use them for his cause. So it's best if you stay here."

 _I…_

Kiyoku understood the truth in his words. She could only hang her head low.

… _understand._

 _I would much rather_ not _stay here, but I understand._

 _Thank you for thinking of my sake, Koenma Daiou_ -sama.

Much as he hated to admit it, Koenma knew that the Eternal was right—the newest nemesis of the Spirit World and the latest threat to the safety of all humankind was, without a doubt, none other than former Spirit Detective Sensui Shinobu.

"This is it. He's given the signal—he's ready to face his replacement," concluded Koenma, teething on his bubblegum blue pacifier more intensely than ever before. "The question now is: Is _Yusuke_ ready to face _him_?"

Just then, he turned to face his invisible, intangible listener squarely. He knew that she could see him clearly—perfectly—anyway.

"Thank you, Kiyoku, for lending me the power to revive Genkai. Toguro had a point in asking me to bring her back to life after all. Yusuke's going to need her training again."

Kiyoku said nothing. She knew that he was now thinking aloud—and had more to declare.

"In fact, I think _everyone_ needs to be retrained. But I shouldn't inform Botan. She might give the plan away."

He took a moment to chuckle at his always well-meaning yet also often air-headed assistant.

"Better clue in Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama."

* * *

 _Sensui_ -san _was a smart man, Tsuki._

 _No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't read him—the same way I can't ever understand you._

 _He knew what my powers were._

 _Why I had them._

 _How I could use them._

 _How to control them._

 _How to make them stronger._

 _How to make_ me _stronger._

 _So I could use them however the hell I wanted._

 _And now that I have, I won't let anyone hurt me again._

* * *

"My… partner… is opening a tunnel to the Demon World. Soon, demons of all classes will come through the tunnel and destroy the pestilence called Humanity."

Kaname said nothing—even if it took him all his willpower to stop himself from commenting on Sensui's choice of the word 'partner.'

" _Even you and I_ are not immune from it, for we, too, live in sin and decadence."

And to close his sales pitch, the Dark Angel finally dropped the bomb on him.

"Come to our lair. I have… something… to show you."

* * *

"Better clue in Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama."

From within her preservation tank, Kiyoku suddenly froze at the sound of that last name.

Suddenly—automatically—involuntarily, a trivial yet tender memory kept her frozen to her spot.

 _The City of Yukimi was especially chilly that day._

 _She had just stepped into the city and was only halfway to the Meiou private campus when a thin needle of rain pricked her warm, rosy cheek._

 _She held her own palm up and gazed upon the gloomy heavens, swollen gray clouds shadowing the city, promising her a shower at any moment._

Great. _Another icy bead fell onto her outstretched palm._ Just when I didn't take my bicycle.

 _Soon enough, the sky no longer dropped mere needles upon her and the rest of the metropolis. Within minutes, it had taken to tossing and throwing raindrops that hit like entire bales of hay... liquid tumbleweeds altogether._

 _Her uniform and hair clung to her like second skin._

 _A drenched, wretched Mushiyori Junior High School senior silently stood before the Meiou Private High School entrance gates, crossing her arms before her chest. But it was no use. She could not keep herself warm that way. Not with her soaked sleeves._

 _She tilted her head and eyes up to read the announcement posted on the campus billboard._

Meiou.

If I made it, then I could finally be in the same—

 _At that moment, she stopped her own thought in its tracks before it ventured into dangerous territory._

What am I thinking? I must not…

 _She sighed to herself, a cloud of cold mist escaping her lips. A gust of rain-chilled air wrapped around her and froze her to her core._

 _Glassy blue eyes scanned through the list of surnames beginning with the letter A. The name 'Akasaki Minaku' lit them up._

Nami- _chan_ was accepted!

 _The same eyes were already ferreting out another name in the list when they suddenly betrayed her. From the corner of her eye, a Meiou student strolled past the school gate. A gasp caught in her throat._

K…

 _And there he was—standing before her for the very first time since both of them embraced humanity. His new, current form, while undeniably human, was still far more exotic in countenance than the average native of their land. With his face, he could—and did—catch the eye and attention of even the least attentive bystander or stranger in his midst._

 _And for a moment, she wished that he had not caught her own._

 _He was holding up an umbrella—over both his own head as well as that of a chocolate-eyed female Meiou student who looked his age… likely in the same year as him… and most likely in the same class as well. As the boy and the girl took cover under one umbrella, he silently, steadily held its handle between them as his girlfriend blissfully chatted away with him, her arm flailing wildly at her side._

 _And suddenly—automatically—involuntarily, her mnemonic mind retrieved a name that she would never dare say aloud at that time._

Kitajima Maya.

 _Whatever puppet-string was tugging at her heart seemed to be pulling up the corners of her lips as well. They cracked a small, slowly spreading smile._

You found a human who matters to you…

 _Observing blue eyes turned their full focus onto his shoulder—the very part of his body farthest away from the energetic, enthusiastic brunette girl who shared his portable foldable canopy. Despite his svelte, slender frame, his shoulder was broad, like that of a militiaman._

 _And getting wetter and wetter by the second._

… so much that you don't even mind braving the elements—just to ensure that she no longer has to.

 _Now the very puppet-string that had been tugging at her heart pulled up the corners of her lips even more._

I only hope that _you_ matter—just as much—to _her_ , too.

But I'm in no position to ask anything of her—or even you.

 _But not once did Mayonaka Setsuki's shy dimples ever show._

You haven't changed at all.

And, from the way I just can't help myself right here and now…

 _She closed her eyes and chuckled to herself—automatically, involuntarily, sadly._

… neither have I.

Her consciousness now resurfacing into the present time, suddenly—automatically—involuntarily, another thought dawned upon her.

 _He_ was on Koenma's side. On Urameshi Yusuke's team. An ally of the Spirit World in protecting—defending—the safety of the Human World.

Meanwhile, Hagiri Kaname was now working under Sensui. That darned monster who had the audacity, the nerve, and the gall to christen himself with the alias 'Dark Angel' had taken him under his indeed dark, blood-tipped wing.

Training him. To kill.

" _Ame_ -kun _…_ " Kiyoku's voice trailed off, lost… absent… gone. " _Kaname…_ "

From outside her preservation tank, a curious Koenma could swear that he could somehow see the Eternal inside actually biting her bottom lip.

" _Kurama…_ "

* * *

The very demon-human whom the Eternal had just called out to was precariously sitting upon his windowsill, one leg propped up on the ledge and the other planted on the carpeted floor of his bedroom. As he straddled the sill, he leaned back upon the window frame, the thin concrete scaffolding pressing upon his back and spine.

Wispy, noctilucent clouds smoothly sailed through the starless night sky. A tacit, tranquil Kurama was basking in the light of the midnight moon when a chill, ill breeze welcomed itself into his room.

Wind from the Demon World.

At that moment, endless green eyes could have sworn that even just for a split second, his human fingernails had suddenly grown back into his canine _youko_ talons.

 _I still smell demon. Must have brought the wind from the Dark Tournament back here with me._

As the merged demon-human entertained the idea that he must still have some remaining 'juice' or 'residue' from Suzuki's age-reversing potion extracted from the essence of the _Tokitadare_ flower from the Demon World—which he had drunk in its most potent, most concentrated liquid form in preparation for his duel to the death with Karasu—the trees in the Minamino garden rustled and swayed with the foul evening wind. Kurama eyed the sturdiest branch of the tree across his window.

A particular fire demon was especially fond of that branch.

 _Could this have been what Hiei_ truly _wished for upon winning the Tournament? For the Human World to remind him a little more of home?_

* * *

She was uncomfortable in there.

The Crown Prince of the Spirit World could not even bring himself to clap a reassuring hand upon her accursed, enchanted preservation tank. The talismanic cloths and paper spells tags cocooning the vessel could very well fry him alive.

The least he could do was meet her eyes.

Those now-transparent yet… miserable… morose… eyes.

"Unfortunately, I can't let you out of there, Kiyoku. Not yet. The Security and Surveillance Division had been alerted that the Chapter Black videotape has gone missing, so it's only a matter of time before _that_ news reaches my father, too. I can't let Father know that you've gone missing on us, too."

Without a word, the now-mortal Deity of Memory transmitted the latest of her live eyewitness accounts to the Spirit World Royal Synchronized Recording and Surveillance System mainframe, her recollections flowing out of her containment facility in the form of a brand new Memory Orb. As soon as the Eternal released her most up-to-the-attosecond Orb, the scene materialized before Koenma in the eighty surveillance monitor screens on display, instantaneously saved into the Royal Syncording Surveillance Database for automatic recording into the Side A of the replacement Chapter Black tape.

"Just finish rerecording Chapter Black." The prince ordered his subordinate royal. "Then you're free to return to the Human World."

But Kiyoku remained unable to fully concentrate on recalling all of the nigh-endless contents of the Chapter Black tape. She was distracted. All she could think of were two human men now on opposing sides of the same world war.

* * *

Smoldering lavender eyes took in the sight of it all.

"So _this_ is the notorious Irima Cave," muttered the permanent resident of Mushiyori City to himself. Despite living a mere three kilometers away from the darkest, most dangerous, most despicable landmark in all of Mushiyori, this was Hagiri Kaname's first time to actually step into the mouth of the cave itself. "The so-called hellhole where scorned and star-crossed lovers go to die. And the perfect place for the heartbroken to commit suicide."

He turned to Sensui and the pale, turquoise-haired human-looking demon silently sitting—seemingly meditating—at the very center of a wooden canoe littered with lit white candles and burning incense sticks, and floating on the man-made lake that had spilled over from the leaks in the intricate system of waterways and channels flowing throughout the cave.

"So what does that make _the two of you_?"

The brash, impudent teenager smirked to himself at his own joke, not at all aware of the private, painful truth in his words. He soon digressed, however.

"This place is _nothing_. Bet _she_ wouldn't have been scared in here, either."

The Dark Angel motioned to the tall, slender teenage boy who kept his hands stashed into his denim jeans pockets.

"Gatekeeper, this is Hagiri. Hagiri, Gatekeeper."

Only now did the powerful spell-caster seated in an Indian sitting position on the one-man raft finally lift his head and open only one of his eyes to acknowledge the newcomer. "Welcome to our lair."

This other dude…

His voice…

It was just… so low and mellow.

Just like hers.

A suddenly stunned, silent Kaname could only nod at Itsuki's pleasantry. There was simply something… eerie… about both Sensui and that man on the boat. Both men came across as… gentle… willowy… even frail… at first glance. Yet Kaname could tell that it was only a matter of time until both of them unleashed the fiercest, most ferocious of beasts from within.

But Hagiri Kaname was not afraid of any such beast.

"So, do you have an actual name, or am I just gonna have to go by 'Keeper of the Gate'?"

He wasn't actually all that interested in the guy's name. He just wanted to hear that low, mellow voice again. Soon.

And soon enough, the spell-caster on the boat opened both his eyes at last, shooting a glance at his partner on dry land.

"Sensui," Itsuki began, each new word oozing from his lips silently, secretly soothing Kaname's ears. "Should I...? Or shall it be too painful a… reminder?"

Was the dude on the boat always this… _strange_? And vague, to boot?

A chuckle of amusement passed the lips of the Dark Angel. He wanted to see how the boy would take it—that is, _if_ he could take it.

"His name is Itsuki," Sensui volunteered a response for his longtime partner.

The devil-may-care bad boy harrumphed. "Huh. Sounds normal enough."

He could not understand why the name would _ever_ serve as "too painful a… reminder" of _anything_.

Several seconds—an entire minute, in fact—passed before the epiphany finally hit Kaname like a ton of bricks.

Itsuki…

It sounded just like…

Smoldering lavender eyes widened to the thought.

And here I _tsuki_ was, with _Se_ nsui…!

Suddenly, right then and there, both the former Spirit Detective gone AWOL and astray as well as his partner-in-crime could read the words _Ugh! Get out of my head!_ written across the teenage boy's face.

Both men could not help but burst into a soft yet rich peal of unified laughter.

Now _both_ of them struck Kaname as strange… eerie. They were just so… synchronized. So _together_. One knew what the other thought without exchanging a single word.

But as… eerie… as both they and their hideout and headquarters of choice were, they had a TV.

And a video player, to boot.

And a cassette tape! And another one!

Dismissing his last dismal, dismaying thought by stashing it to the farthest back of his mind, Kaname now turned to scoff at the VCR. "What do you guys even watch in here? Porn?"

A most mysterious smile graced the lips of both men.

"Ah, but you will find out soon enough."

Whatever. Kaname didn't care enough, anyway.

And he said so.

"Whatever floats your boat." He shrugged Sensui off and, turning to Itsuki, added: "And in _your_ case, literally."

Now bored, nonchalant lavender eyes studied the entire panorama that lay before them: The lake… The raft… Itsuki… The countless candles and incense sticks surrounding Itsuki… The black smoke from the candles and incense wafting up… up… up… An even blacker hole…

Wait, what?

The once uninterested, disinterested Kaname finally took out his right hand from his jeans pocket and pointed straight at the vortex-like expanse of subspace being distorted before his very eyes. "So _that_ was the hole-tunnel-thing you were telling me about?"

This was all getting creepier and creepier by the minute.

Just then, another alarming swarm of _Makaichu_ mosquitoes buzzed right through and out of the very tunnel that Kaname pointed toward, most of the otherworldly insects rushing right past the three of them, but several especially famished ones hovering close—too close—to his clothes and skin.

"So _that_ 's where they're coming from," Sensui's newest recruit pointed out, more to himself than to anyone else in the cave. He did not even bother swatting them away—they were just a waste of his time. Now that he had voluntarily neared himself to their "hive," he no longer saw the need to fend for himself.

Tsuki wasn't there anyway.

Besides, they may very well have already bitten him.

Several times.

Which _could_ explain just why he was now insane enough to play along with and humor this Sensui guy.

Kaname was just about to wave his second thoughts away—exactly as he should have done to the mosquitoes pestering him—when the man on the boat caught his attention once more.

"Hagiri," said Itsuki—softly, as he always did. "Are you ready, and willing—with all your mind and heart—to see all of humanity be fed to demonkind?"

Kaname closed his eyes and harrumphed at his inquiry.

"What difference does it make?" The youngest of the three men in the cave spat brusquely. "Humans are selfish, brutal idiots who treat each other like we're all already in Hell anyway."

With a most knowing smirk, it was then that Sensui decided to… enlighten… Itsuki on the story behind that human teenage girl in Kaname's life whose name strongly resounded of both their own.

The Dark Angel then went on to elaborate on the fact that some special human beings—like Kaname and himself—had Abilities awakened and activated by the gate to the Demon World, and that countless humans have been abusing their respective Abilities by maximizing their potential to inflict injury, harm, and even death to their fellow human beings.

Smoldering lavender eyes narrowed.

"I always thought there were _a lot_ of mean and nasty humans out there, but are they…" The boy found himself slowing his speech despite himself. "… we… really _that_ many…?"

Upon hearing his inquiry, Sensui's face lit up at the same time an ominous, foreboding darkness also eclipsed it. The expression on it was… unreadable. Not because he wore a poker face, but because he seemed to be wearing every facial expression ever known to man—as well as some yet to be discovered and depicted—all on the same face.

His face was simply indescribable.

"Why don't you try counting them for yourself?"

With that, he turned on the TV and the VCR, and popped one specific cassette tape into the video player.

* * *

As smoldering lavender eyes viewed the otherworldly supernatural videotape of humans torturing their fellow humans and even demons just for sport, for fun, for the heck of it, for the hell of it, and for the love of it, Hagiri Kaname found himself plunging deeper and deeper into it all. For some reason he could not even begin to explain, he felt… drawn… to this true-to-life movie, _attracted_ to it… Perhaps captivated by its carnage, by the endless possibilities of inflicting inhuman punishment on human beings.

Serenely silent all this while, the Dark Angel observed Kaname as the arrogant yet nonetheless impressionable adolescent watched the tape on and on. Soon, it dawned on him that his young protégé had hopelessly fallen under the bewitching spell of the Spirit Energy of the very creator of the tape itself.

Beyond the boy's earshot, a secretive Sensui turned to a just as subdued Itsuki.

"The pull of that Eternal on him remains strong… magnetic. He remains attracted to her even after her 'death'."

Then, so as not to arouse Kaname's suspicion, Sensui turned his attention back to him, calling out to the boy over his shoulder.

"Hagiri. How do you like it so far?"

Even from afar, the Dark Angel could practically hear the cool, casual shrug in the sharpshooter's tone.

"This didn't make a killing at the box office, _that_ 's for sure."

But what disturbed Hagiri Kaname the most was _not_ the unspeakable footage of the horror flick of a videotape itself, but his own reaction to it.

His… tolerance… of it.

His… feverish, irresistible urge… to watch it all.

Until its very end.

A most satisfied smirk twisted Sensui's lips. "Glad to see you're enjoying it anyway."

Now Kaname himself smirked as well, again scoffing in proud arrogance—his pride forbidding him from every other emotion to have ever existed.

"Tsuki died right before my eyes. Now I can watch _anything_."

* * *

Even if he could outright declare that she was lost and gone forever, he still hung on to her… held on to her… even if only in his memory.

Little did Hagiri Kaname know that the very girl he lost could hear his mind's voice—loud and clear.

 _Sensui_ -san _had a beautiful mind._

 _A mind I could never have._

 _I could never outsmart him, Tsuki—just like I can never outsmart you._

 _He took me under his wing._

 _He showed me just how repulsive and despicable humans can be._

 _No._

 _How repulsive and despicable humans really are._

 _He told me about demons—and how cruel humans have always been to demons—even though everyone thinks it's always been the other way around._

 _He showed me a videotape of the most atrocious crimes of all humanity._

 _Yeah. Chapter Black._

 _Ring a bell, Tsuki?_

 _Sure it does. Sensui_ -san _told me you recorded it yourself._

 _And he showed it to me._

 _I saw it with my own two eyes._

All _of it._

 _The crime… the killing… the backstabbing… the bloodlust…_

 _I had witnessed it all!_

 _It was the worst thing I'd ever seen in my life, and I've already seen plenty of horrible things in my lifetime. You can't even watch TV without seeing something horrible—all the fighting, killing, homicides, sick tortures that you see on the news… I've seen it all._

 _But the videotape is worse… much,_ much _worse…_

 _The actions on that tape were so hideous that they bordered on exciting. You had to see just what we humans could do… what we humans were capable of…_

 _I couldn't close my eyes._

 _I couldn't look away._

 _I kept waiting—waiting—for the end of that god-damned movie, waiting for when the big damn hero will finally show up and show them all just what happens when you piss him off so bad, they'll all get what they deserve._

 _I wanted that ending. That sense of revenge… redemption… at the end._

 _But it never came._

As Kaname's smoldering lavender eyes glued themselves to the TV screen, Kiyoku watched her original recording of Chapter Black with him through her own mind's eye, recording and chronicling every last pixel and iota from the videotape being played in the Human World straight into its substitute copy in the Spirit World.

But the Divinity of the Past, of History, of Bygone, of Old could not steel herself enough to re-watch the entire nightmare sequence with her human beau. She was simply too preoccupied with watching _him_ himself, growing more and more hardened by the video by the second.

" _No, Ame_ -kun… _Don't take this too seriously… Remember, not everyone acts the way that the humans in that tape did… Just because you've bitten into a few bad apples does not at all mean that the whole bunch is bad…_ "

Yet she never once stopped listening to the churn and turn of the innermost cogwheels of his psyche.

 _It just…_

… _never…_

… _came._

 _Even after I blacked out._

 _I remember not remembering anything after about ninety minutes into the film. My brain needed the unconscious downtime to drink in and digest all of the terrible misdeeds on that tape._

 _How weak._

 _Pathetic._

 _I hate this._

 _That's another disgusting thing about us humans: We're just so weak and pathetic._

 _How can we possibly respect a race as weak and powerless as us?_

She soon learned that his question was rhetorical.

 _We can't._

 _Nobody does._

 _There is no respect left in this world anymore._

 _In fact, I'm starting to wonder if there ever was._

 _After what I've watched and seen, my faith in the human race has hit an all-time low—rock bottom._

* * *

Sensui finally turned off the VCR.

And the TV.

The fearless daredevil had already lost consciousness too many times by now. He could even very well suffer from mild to moderate amnesia.

But no.

Sensui would not have that.

Not if the boy was to be one of the Seven.

"You see, Hagiri…"

The Dark Angel first waited for those smoldering lavender eyes to regain focus—and to focus on him—before he went on.

"You and I are really no better than they. You, too, are capable of doing everything that they had done in this video."

That Rei kid had taught him this.

The best way to get on this Hagiri Kaname kid's good side was to play on—to pander to—the boy's pride… to inflate it with words of encouragement… to boost his confidence.

"Not only that. You are capable enough—no, _strong_ enough—to _destroy them all_."

* * *

All the way from the Spirit World, Kiyoku suddenly banged her fists against the spellbound walls of her containment vessel.

 _Oh, this manipulative monster!_

 _He makes you feel like_ you _will be the "big damn hero" who will come to save the day and wipe them all out…!_

 _Don't fall for it, Hagiri Kaname!_

 _Don't get hooked by his bait!_

* * *

"Indeed," continued Sensui, finally sealing the deal. "You can make every—last—human in this world wish that they had never been born…"

Hagiri Kaname could not deny it—Sensui- _san_ 's declamations were nourishing him, emboldening him… lifting him and his broken, grieving spirit up to an all-time high.

He didn't think it could ever be possible to feel _this_ good after watching the pure, unadulterated horror that was Chapter Black.

And just as the Dark Angel's last words echoed in his fondest of memories—

" _You can make every—last—human in this world wish that they had never been born..._ "

—the envoy of darkness and doom just _had_ to deliver that ultimate—final—one in the lowest, mellowest, most loving whisper ever to have caressed the shell of Kaname's ear.

"… Sniper."

* * *

"… _Sniper._ "

And, as if Sensui Shinobu had just as lovingly tickled the shell of her own ear, a sudden shivering shudder ran both up and down Kiyoku's spine.

Just then, a faint, faraway recollection took hold of the Goddess of Memory herself.

 _She was secretly watching them—eavesdropping on them—from the rooftop fire escape of the Mushiyori Junior High School building._

" _Y' kiddin' me?" Rei and his cohorts heaved all together and wrenched his fist off the diamond-shaped gap in the metal wiring. "I'm jus' getting' started, pretty boy wit' the pretty face an' the pretty name!"_

 _At that, a frown crossed Kaname's face. "'Name'?"_

" _Don't tell me it never hit'cha!" scoffed Rei, the words rolling off his lips with contempt. "'Kaname'! What a girly name! Fits a bitch like_ you _!"_

" _Hmph." The slighted Kaname seared the bully alive with nothing more than smoldering eyes, secretly agreeing with the derogatory remark yet openly resenting it all at once._

She and her Ame- _kun_ may have never had a heart-to-heart tête-à-tête about it, but Mayonaka Setsuki knew _this_ about him:

Kaname's first name did not sit too well with him.

He had realized it a long, long time ago—much earlier in life than that pathetic bully Rei ever had. 'Kaname' was indeed a unisex name. From the offended look on his face alone, Kiyoku could already tell that he had never been too fond of it. And from the Memory Orbs that she had collected, compiled, and chronicled from his own mind, she was aware that he had spent his entire childhood trying to come up with some other cooler, more masculine name for himself—even just an alias that oozed mystery… machismo.

And now… someone _finally_ christened him with one.

'Sniper.'

But did his 'baptizer' just _have_ to be none other and no less than the Dark Angel—no, the Spawn of the Devil!—himself?

 _Oh, no._

 _Ohhhhh, no._

Groaning more to herself than to anyone else, Kiyoku clapped a hand onto her own forehead.

 _That monster's got 'im now._

 _Hook, line, and sinker._

* * *

Kaname returned home only once: to gather his belongings. His widowed mother was his only companion anyway. And these past few months, she didn't even seem to mind that he was away—after all, she had been spending practically all her time with her new boyfriend: that Kitajima guy.

But when he arrived to collect and pack his barest essentials, his mother just so happened to be there.

In fact, she had just put down the phone.

"Kaname, Engineer Mayonaka just called."

The only child of the Hagiri family froze. Of course Mayonaka Tsuzuku would call _him_ to investigate the whereabouts of his daughter!

Despite his strong, stoic façade, the boy swallowed a hard, heavy lump back down his throat. He had _a lot_ of explaining to do.

"He said your girlfriend hasn't gone back home since your last date."

If only the mother of the Hagiri household could hear her son's internal monologue, she would have already overheard a _Way to state the obvious, Mom_ at some point.

Refusing to admit even to his mother that Tsuki was no longer among them—among the living—because _that_ would necessarily involve also admitting that he was with her at the time—and that he had failed to protect her at the time—the tired, torn Kaname simply answered, "We had a fight."

Given the tragic turn of events, it really _seemed_ as though they 'had a fight'… even if they were really actually 'in a fight'—with that stupid Rei and his guys from Mushiyori High.

"Don't expect me to know where she is," the bad boy went on coolly—more coolly than he expected himself to be. He couldn't believe himself at the moment. He was handling this so… so…

So… well.

All thanks to Sensui- _san_.

"And don't look for _me_ , either. I want out of the house. Need a breather."

But before his mother could stop him from leaving—or even just utter a word in edgewise—the devil-may-care delinquent went on, exuding an even cooler air and aura than before. His confidence was growing. He was buying his own lies.

"And knowing Tsuki, so does she. Just tell her old man that she needed a break from me. And from the world, too."

Oh, _if only_ her maternal instincts could pick up exactly what he had meant by Tsuki's 'taking a break from _the world_ '…

… then maybe, just maybe, his only familial confidant could grasp just how… _devastating_ … this news truly was.

His backpack slung over his shoulder, the runaway son stepped out of the Hagiri home without another word.

"Kaname?"

At that point, little did he know that his own mother had her own 'news' to break to him: that she was now engaged to Kitajima—and that her little boy would no longer be a lonely only child soon. In fact, she was just about to show him her engagement ring when he just up and left.

"But where are you going, honey? Kaname? _Kaname_!"

* * *

He no longer responded to that name.

After all, he now had a new one. Some other cooler, more masculine name for himself—even if it was just an alias that oozed mystery… machismo.

Hagiri Kaname walked out the door and into the cool, starless night, and discovered a brand new slick cobalt Yamaha parked right in front of his apartment complex.

And this one looked fully intact—and functional.

He smirked upon remembering the two creepy men in the cave.

So _this_ was their 'reward' to him for stomaching the vile Chapter Black, huh?

The third of the Seven—the official first of Sensui's human recruits—whirled to face his home one last time, bidding his final farewell to the only family he had ever known until now.

"It's 'Sniper'."

* * *

And then there were five.

He just hadn't met that "Seaman" yet.

And based on _his_ stupid—and possibly sexual innuendo-ridden—alias, Kaname frankly wasn't all that interested in meeting him, either.

In next to no time, Sensui had successfully scouted another one: a respectable-looking professional in his late twenties or early thirties in a pristine white lab coat and the dorkiest eyeglasses that Hagiri Kaname had ever lived to see.

Good thing the man had no idea what he was thinking.

Or did he? What was _his_ Ability? Was he capable of reading minds after all?

"So you've watched Chapter Black too, huh?" asked the man in the coat, pushing his thick, square-rimmed spectacles up the bridge of his nose as he regarded the tall teenage boy standing before him.

"Are _you_ in on this now, too?" Kaname could not help it—he just _had_ to answer the other man's question with another question. "But you're…"

He didn't quite know how best to put it.

"A doctor, I know." The professional finished for him most knowingly. From the irony and exasperation heavily dripping from his voice, it was obvious to anyone that he had already had this very conversation one too many times before. "I should be _saving_ lives, not _destroying_ them, I know."

"You must get that a lot."

" _Eh_ , I'm used to it. Comes with the job description, after all." Suddenly, the self-confessed medical practitioner smirked under his specs. For a doctor, his entire range of facial expressions weren't all that comforting—in fact, some were downright ghastly… bone-chillingly creepy. "To answer the same questions over and over and over again, just because a different patient is inquiring, every single time."

"Then you shouldn't mind my asking." The devilishly handsome young man decided to get right down to the bottom of things. "Won't helping Sensui- _san_ open that tunnel to the Demon World put you right out of business or something? You know… No more patients to heal, because we'll all be gone…"

"I believe you just answered your own question, boy," scoffed the doctor, comfortably leaning back upon the lone couch within the vaunted, haunted landmark of Irima Cave, its springs creaking under his weight. "That's right—'we'll all be gone.' I _will_ be 'out of business'—I won't be practicing anymore, simply because I'll be snuffed out, just like everyone else."

Kaname remained standing. Smoldering lavender eyes gazed into the distance, first upon the cool ripples in the manmade body of water in the cave, then at the pitch-black vortex of subspace slowly but surely yawning open right above the lake.

"Then why did you go through it all in the first place?"

The bespectacled specialist looked up at him again.

"Go to college—for even more than four years, at that…" The Sniper rattled off one by one, a distant, disapproving disdain in his baritone. "Study Medicine… Become a fellow… The whole exhausting rigmarole of becoming a doctor at all…?"

The boy never planned on attending college, after all. He just didn't see the point in going through all the trouble. What was all of it for? For a so-called "bright" and "promising" "future"? Really?

"And I'm _not_ just a simple 'doctor'—your neighborhood general practitioner. I'm a surgeon. A surgical oncologist." The medic pointed out matter-of-factly. "Meaning to say I spent even _more_ years burning the midnight oil with my back hunched over and my nose buried in all those medical textbooks I had to read. Took me twelve years in all. Yeah, yeah, I know."

He was just so tired of explaining himself by now. But he continued anyway.

"Well, when I was your age, uh…"

"Hagiri."

"Hagiri," Kamiya Minoru mentally noted the name—as if they would ever encounter an opportunity to actually have a conversation like this again someday. "I really _did_ want to be the perfect medical practitioner. My innocent, naïve self _used to_ believe that little ol' me could somehow _actually_ make something of myself—make a difference in this world and all. Treat the fatally wounded, the mortally ill. Give away vaccines to the hard-up. Cure the poor for free. Idealistic crap like that.

"But by the time I was in scrubs, I'd seen enough to change my mind about humanity at large."

This time, the Sniper noticed it—the subtle, subliminal changes in the Doctor's face and tone of voice. He was slowly but surely immersing himself deeper and deeper in his own exposition. His… passion… grew with each new word that left his lips.

Kaname could tell that Kamiya must really believe in what he said he believed in.

"The very mortally wounded I treated were the very scoundrels who, once I treated them, roamed free among the living and went about committing one crime after another. A patient who was supposed to die at the operating table from a fatal encounter… Well, he lived—I did my best to make sure he lived—only to claim the life of the very man who made an attempt on his life. So now that I look back, had I not been so gung-ho on saving his life, I could've rid the world of a killer on the loose. Stupid of me, wasn't it?"

"Well." An arrogant Kaname was inclined to agree. "You didn't know."

A dark smirk eclipsing his face, Kamiya shook his head. "Over my years of practice, I have come to meet the greediest, most self-consumed human beings I've ever had the displeasure of offering my services to.

"Why, I'll never forget that one mother whose dying five-year-old son had been hooked on to life support for the longest time. What kind of mother would _beg_ for her kid's doctor to pull the plug—on her own only child!—just because his hospital bills were running so high, she was fast running out of dough to bet on her high-stakes poker tourneys?"

For one full, pregnant minute, Kamiya and Hagiri merely traded stares—stares devoid of comprehension as well as compassion.

"There are no creatures uglier than _us_ around, are there? The creatures we call 'humans' know no bounds to their greed." The surgical oncologist was borderline hysterical now. "They consume everything— _destroy everything_!"

Then his entire world slowed… calmed… once more.

"And before I knew it, my disgust toward humanity eventually escalated to hatred. And if _you_ 're in this for the long haul, then I'm one hundred percent positive this has crossed _your_ mind, too."

The Sniper merely shrugged his shoulders coolly. He, too, had his own story to tell. "Well, can't say I disagree with you there."

"The thing about being a doctor, Hagiri, is that no matter how many diseases and disorders you study and research about—and no matter how _fucking_ hard you try to study them all—sooner or later, one of them will be the end of you anyway. Even doctors can't beat death. So some try to _cheat_ death instead.

"Ever since my first year as a fellow, I've been hard pressed to choose the way _I myself_ am going to die. There was _no_ — _fucking_ — _way_ I was going to let myself be killed by a mere infection or virus! And I've never been too keen on the idea of wasting away through the years either—just letting good ol' Father Time whittle away at my body until it finally crumbles back into the soulless ash it once was.

"So when Sensui- _san_ came to me with this all-new alternative… It dawned on me like a glorious light."

Kamiya paused awhile, just to build up the drama and tension of the moment.

"Demons," he went on. "I thought, 'Huh, why not?' I wouldn't mind a demon putting me right out of my misery. Sure beats admitting defeat to disease."

All throughout the surgeon's rant, the smirk on Hagiri Kaname's face kept growing and growing despite himself.

He had always been… attracted… drawn… to opinionated people. They went against the grain. Charged through all obstacles. Defied all odds. The ultimate challengers… rebels. And they _did_ have a cause. They had a certain strength to them. Even if Reality ever came down to them squaring off against the world, they actually stood a chance of winning.

The cheeky, troublemaking Mayonaka Setsuki…

The psychotic, genocidal Sensui Shinobu…

And now, the just as psychotic and just as genocidal—and seemingly even more suicidal—Kamiya Minoru.

All of them were criminal. And all of them enthralled Kaname.

Good to know humans like them existed.

They gave Hagiri hope. Hope that not all of humanity were mere mindless, stupid fools.

Then, at that moment, everything seemed to click in Hagiri's mind.

Everything fell into place.

Years upon years of being bullied and mistreated…

Tsuki's death… at his own hands, at that…

Sensui- _san_ 's appearance in his life…

The man's mission—to eradicate all humankind…

Chapter Black, which proved to him just why humanity deserved to be wiped right out of existence…

It was all foreordained that all these life experiences would—should—befall upon him, so that _he_ , too, would seek something higher: to become one of _them_ —a rebel _with_ a cause—a cause that he would stand up for.

To become one of _them_.

One who believed in what Sensui- _san_ believed in.

One of the Seven.

Just then, this vague yet overwhelming, overpowering sense of enlightenment washed over him—the state of being nothing, nothing but a pawn, a peon, of some genocidal criminal mastermind whom he now trusted completely—a man whom he would gladly surrender all his power and being to, even at this point in time.

 _Now_ it all made sense to Hagiri Kaname.

He met Sensui Shinobu for a reason.

It was Fate.

"That was some enlightening speech you just delivered there, uh…" Kaname's voice trailed off.

"Kamiya. Kamiya Minoru."

"Doctor Kamiya," added the boy, in the rarest display of respect. After all, the man had earned it.

And Kamiya Minoru extended his hand.

"Just call me 'Doctor,' as Dark Angel does."

A slender hand clad in a fingerless black biker's glove with titanium knuckle guards reached for the Doctor's hand and shook it with a firm grip.

"'Sniper'."

* * *

 _In Sensui… you saw my eyes._

 _Then in Itsuki… you heard my voice—namely, how I speak._

 _And now, in Kamiya… you heard my voice again—this time, how I stand for my convictions._

An immeasurable, infinite sorrow eclipsing her face, Kiyoku hung her head low and closed her eyes.

 _I am flattered… and happy… that you still think of me—that you even_ look _for me—in the people you meet now._

 _And yet I am_ not _flattered… and_ not _happy… that you see a bit of me in them._

 _They're evil, Ame_ -kun.

 _Stay away from them!_

 _Especially that manipulative monster…!_

He _orchestrated everything! The whole shebang!_

 _The destruction of your bike… Those three pesky nuisances in our lives cornering me in Meiou…_

 _Even our being apart right now…!_

He _was the mastermind behind it all!_

* * *

Even as he took his brand new Yamaha out for a spin, the words of the Dark Angel still stained his mind.

 _They can gather as many of them as they want. Group together as much as they want._

 _But it will all be pointless. They will all go down._

 _Because in the end, it's every man for himself._

 _This is what's wrong with all humanity._

 _We humans really only care about our own selves—no one else. We have no sense of loyalty. Our loyalties are only to ourselves. There is no trust. Only selfishness—the pure evil of the human soul._

 _And for that, all of humanity must pay the price for their sins—with their lives._

Starting with the crowd strolling along the Mushiyori City Plaza.

 _I'm on my way, Sensui_ -san.

His first mission: To open fire for the Seven.

Snipe a 'warning shot' at one of Urameshi's men—show them just whom they're up against.

 _Let's see how they handle me._

 _They can't escape me now._

* * *

A helpless, hopelessly frustrated Kiyoku mercilessly pounded her fists against the enchanted accursed surface of her containment vessel.

 _You're not making any sense, Hagiri Kaname!_

 _What makes you believe that_ you _would remain standing—that you would be spared—once the rest of humanity is gone for good?_

 _You are human, too!_

 _One of_ them _!_

 _One of the very humans whom that darned monster is trying to erase from existence!_

 _Don't you see it, Ame_ -kun _?_

 _Your life is in grave danger! No matter what you do from here on in, you are caught—trapped!—between the devil and the deep blue sea!_

 _If Urameshi_ -san _and his team don't defeat you, you will_ still _wind up dead—at that monster's own hands!_

 _You think that that monster is putting Urameshi_ -san _at a disadvantage by pitting him against you?_

 _No!_

 _He is putting_ you _in certain danger by pitting_ you _against_ him _!_

So viciously did she grit her upper and lower rows of teeth together that a sharp, stabbing pain shot through her gums.

 _Sensui Shinobu is no different from the very humans_ _whom you wish to see gone._

 _He will merely use you—and the rest of the Seven—as a collective distraction, a time-waster, to stall Urameshi_ -san _and his comrades while that monster twiddles his thumbs and waits for the gate to the Demon World to open._

 _And to think that you despised Rei so much for controlling you and your every move that day—when in fact, this manipulative monster is doing_ the exact same thing _to you_ now _! Even more subtly… subliminally… than Rei ever did!_

 _He's playing you like a fiddle, Ame_ -kun _!_

 _He's treating you like a pawn in his grand, global-scale chess game!_

 _A puppet on a string!_

 _All of them—toys!_

Suddenly, she stopped her thought in its tracks.

That _is what you are to him, Ame_ -kun.

 _A toy._

 _I just_ hate _the way he's treating you_ not _as the independent sentient individual you are, but as a mere toy. He plays with you… with your emotions… with your better judgment…_

… _until you break. Like the toy that you are to him._

 _And once you have served his sick, twisted purpose, he will simply abandon you—"every man for himself," all right. And that includes him._

 _He will merely leave you to rot. Like the toy that you are to him._

 _Is that what you truly want…?_

* * *

 _All of us deserve to die._

 _Even Sensui_ -san.

 _Even myself._

 _We all deserve to die._

 _It's the only way to make things right in this world._

 _For all of us to die._

 _After all…_

And for one short, silent moment of mourning, the Sniper closed his eyes as he revved his new motorcycle to accelerate even more, plunging head-on and vanishing into the thick, hazy mist.

… _you're gone, too._

 _You even went ahead of me._

* * *

 _No, Ame_ -kun _! I won't be gone for good!_

If only he could hear her from an entire world away.

 _I just need to stay here for the meantime—even if I want nothing more than to get the hell out of here! To stop you!_

Still gnashing her jaws and gritting her teeth, Kiyoku hung her head low and closed her eyes even more tightly than ever before, blinding herself from the grim, glum sight of him driving straight into the darkness.

 _Sadly, I can already foresee that this will_ not _bode well for you, Hagiri Kaname._

 _Mark my words:_

 _The downfall of you Sensui Seven will be your utter lack of unity—of teamwork._

 _Your "every man for himself" mentality and mantra will be the end of you all._

 **Continued** —

—in **Chapter 25** of _**The Kurama whom Kurama Never Knew**_

 **THANK YOU VERY MUCH for reading~! \\(^o^)/**

Should you be interested in reading my other YYH fanfiction, please check out my FF dot Net profile for more—especially if you also love the character of Kurama. ^u^

These three chapters were originally written as backstory for the long-running mystery romance novel entitled, _**The Kurama whom Kurama Never Knew**_ —as its Chapters 10, 24, and 25, respectively—but have been _**adapted**_ **and** _ **rewritten**_ **to best abide by the prompt** of the _**Yu Yu Hakusho**_ **Fanfiction Contest** at the **/r/YuYuHakusho subreddit** at **Reddit dot Com** for the month of August 2015.

For more on the mythology of the 'Eternals' of the Spirit World mentioned in this fanfic—as well as a deeper, more in-depth glimpse into the Kaname x Setsu romance (as well as what eventually becomes of them)—please feel free to read all about them in _The Kurama whom Kurama Never Knew_.

[As for the backstory on the very first time that Hagiri Kaname drove his (first) motorcycle, as well as the very first time that Mayonaka Setsuki called him by the nickname "Ame- _kun_ ," you may read how those unfolded in Chapter 11 of _Never Knew_.]

Here ends my shameless plugging and promotion of my other ongoing YYH project, then~ ^u^

 **I truly appreciate hearing from you!  
** **Please REVIEW~!  
** **\\(^o^)/**

~ **Mikageshi  
** (in both FF dot Net _and_ Reddit dot Com)


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